There was a book we used to read as kids that was a tour of New York City for foreigners. By foreigners, of course, I mean people who are not from around here. People who speak different languages and could not drive to New York no matter how much they wanted to because there is not a bridge that long. The book went on at some length about how the cars went on at some length which I found odd because all the cars went on at some length. That is why, according to Pappy, it was a book for foreigners. They have tiny cars over there.
In addition to the discussion of automobiles, this book had a panorama in cartoon of Times Square including the Camel billboard that blew smoke rings. By the time I first visited New York, in 1977, the billboard was gone. Times Square was pretty much gone for that matter. We stayed at the Sheraton on 7th Avenue, and I can remember going to Rockefeller Center and the Statue of Liberty. I don’t remember going to Times Square. Maybe none of us wanted to take in a strip show.
I made it to Times Square on subsequent trips, and when I was in college Pappy lived in New York. I’d visit him and go over to check out the electronics stores in Times Square at a time when the XXX movies were losing out to VCRs (a few pioneers were distributing porn on the Internet, from what I have been told.) The Gentlemen’s Clubs were being pushed up Broadway and over to 8th and 9th Avenue. In their place, just prior to Disnification, were these sort of sleazy sort of not bargain retailers side by side with young hustlers and legacy businesses from the district’s golden age. I loved the energy and the possibility mixed with the reminiscences.
That fall, back in the Valley of Love and Delight, I took a trip one Saturday morning to Altamont’s Finest, the Dreamland Drive-In. The old clock, gate, snack bar, and restrooms were there, but the parking lot (capacity 600 cars) had been given over to a flea market. It felt just like being back in Times Square, with the fairly desperate and despoiled cheek by jowl with the hopeful and ambitious. Everyone looking for a bargain. The very name of the place gave it the air of a place apart in my psyche.
There must be places like this all over the world. I have certainly seen them in Altamont and in Crossville Tennessee. Bangkok has the Chatuchak Market, not to mention Chinatown. The Night Market in Chaing Mai is almost to one extreme of cheap crap, while the Daytime Market is a bit more respectable. All of them, in their rambling mish-mash, seem to promise that what you dream of can be found there, if you look hard enough.