Home By Marquel Topless in Times Square? Fuggetaboutit.

Topless in Times Square? Fuggetaboutit.

Marquel, TPVs NYTimes I Can’t Bare It Section correspondent, was measuring his various protuberances, when he reached Times Square and he stopped. It was unbearably crowded, so he read instead. Topless in Times Square: A Legal View. 

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York wants to rein in the behavior, but if he tries, the city faces many obstacles. First are the islands that made Times Square a pedestrian way…And also an impassable section. Then comes the fact that the women are topless, not naked. Next comes the fact that men can walk the streets topless with impunity. Next our courts have held that even complete nudity, if done for expressive purposes, is protected free speech. The only limitation is that if it’s done for commercial purposes, it can be regulated.

Now you might say that when these women take off their shirts in Times Square, it’s a commercial act. They don’t do it when they get a hot dog, or when they get on a bus, or when they go to a library or bookstore, or Starbucks or the movies. They’re doing it to get paid, and in our newly wholesome Times Square.

Which brings up the question why is it only these wholesome tourists from Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Mississippi, who will take the time to stare at these painted breasts and then negotiate a price for the experience? These were all questions stymying Marquel but right down Bill de Blasio’s alley, or square.

Bill’s solution is to tear up everything Bloomberg did in Times square, a bit oedipal to Marquel, and return the square to the gas guzzlers. He says the people walk too slowly and who needs that? Marquel is inclined to agree. But that’s because Marquel doesn’t go there any more, which is just short of a Casey Stengel joke (although I’m told it was Yogi Berra, a better catcher, which explains my confusion).

But what Bill seems not to understand, or perhaps more accurately, doesn’t want to understand, is this is tourist land.

New York’s tourist industry is booming. They do walk reeaallyy slowly. Sometimes they seem like they’re actually in reverse, which they really are when they see a naked breast. Well, female breast. Painted. Tourists stop to have their pictures taken, and go back to their several hundred a night hotel rooms.

So Bill’s solution to these tawdry tourists is to literally get rid of them! This is Times square, the section that was continuous XXX rated businesses, sex stores, peep shows, and prostitutes. Now it’s Mickey and Minnie and a painted breast or two just to keep the people from Omaha happy. What’s Bill’s beef?

Times Square is probably our cleanest, least violent, and, yes, most slowly moving area. Just stay away! You can’t walk there and what else do New Yorkers do on the sidewalk besides dodge bikers?

Clearly Bill has a problem. I think it has to do with exactly what he says it does.

Breasts. Bill is mammophobic. He just doesn’t like breasts.

If these women, or men, exposed any other body part, perhaps a few bare butts let’s say, I’m sure Bill would say, fuggetaboutit. But somewhere way back in his formative infancy, Bill experienced breast trauma. What kind, we cannot say. But it’s interesting and entertaining to ponder. We’ll just never know. And maybe Bill won’t either.

All I can say is Bill, get your mind out of the gutter. Let’s arrest a few crooks, maybe indict a few cops, clean up Wall Street, improve the shelters and preschools and leave the breasts to the tawdry tourists. Mind your manners, Bill. After all we invited them. They’re sort of like…guests. Tawdry and slow, but invited guests.

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By MARQUEL: Topless in Times Square?  Fuggetaboutit. 

8 COMMENTS

  1. you are right again Marquel. Stop being a snob, Bill. This is our circus. and it will always be one way or another.

  2. Bill de Blasio was selected to do something great and all he comes up with is the topless girls in search for a buck?

  3. You got it wrong, Marquel. If you’re referring to it’s too crowded I don’t go there anymore, that’s Berra’s joke not Casey Stengel’s.

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