As a native New Yorker myself, I can recall walking through Times Square in 1971 back when 42nd Street was called the Deuce. I remember seeing the massage parlors, the strip clubs, and the drunkies on the street. I was eight years old a the time and I was scared to death. A decade later, I couldn’t get enough of the peep palaces (it was all about Show World), dive bars and massive movie theaters showing kung-fu flicks. While many folks think of Times Square as an erotic (and exotic) playground, it was also a legitimate business and showbiz district. In one brief moment of The Deuce‘s first episode, we see a “working girl” passing a woman on her way to work; those few seconds of screen time said a lot to me about how the city operated at that time.

https://massappeal.com/the-deuce-hbo-for-real-for-real