Fashion designer Todd Oldham has worked with Michael Economy to turn the facade of Peepland into a side-show-like mural. Garish colors surround black silhouettes, huge and curvaceous emblems of show girls. What has happened to the girls themselves? Plastic flowers abut enlarged twenty-five cent pieces, leftovers from the era of pay-by-the-quarter viewing booths. Part cartoon, part circus poster, the painting suggests certain playful energy in the recent life of 42nd Street. It also hints at the menace that accompanies the life of peepshows and pornography. After all, what sideshow lives up to its promise?
"'I think of 42nd Street as a freak show, so the artwork looks like a sideshow,' he said." ("As a Street Goes, So Goes Style," Amy M. Spindler, The New York Times: September 19, 1993.)
Artists' Biography
Todd Oldham designs clothes, jewelry and other wearable items, using unusual colors, bold patterns and exotic materials in whimsical and very sophisticated ways. In recognition of his creative innovations, Oldham was awarded the Perry Ellis Award for New Fashion Talent by the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 1992.
History of the Site
"Liberty Theater spent the 1920s premiering musicals by George Gershwin and Cole Porter only to en up as a porn arcade." ("Glamour and Grime," Lisa Bornstein, Midtown Resident: July 23-August 6, 1993)
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