ADULT VIDEO WORLD

To the left of the dilapidated New Amsterdam Theater, Adult Video World, located at 210 West 42nd Street, was originally Black Jack; a scumatorium beneath contempt. The most interesting thing about Black Jack is what it was before Richie took over. Black Jack, although a seedy bookstore, offered a large selection of erotic paperback books, foreign correspondence mags, and (60) coin-operated peep-booths to view 8 mm X-rated films. These squalid booths alone made Black Jack a serious contender for condemnation by the NY Board of Health; the failure of the rancid ammonia concentrate to properly disinfect the disgustingly filthy booths. Black Jack also showcased the ‘Frisco S + M Theater’, which featured other forms of beatings, other than the one on your nostrils. By all counts, Black Jack dealt a winning hand; as upstairs featured a crummy open-window Peep-A-Live, with loose girls working the windows for a fistful of dollars, and a misbegotten Love Team copulating on center stage in a pool of bodily fluids. Aside from the touch-a-rama and the live acts; an unsightly drag queen often hovered the blue and yellow booths surrounding the stage, propositioning customers for $5 blow-jobs in the oversized 25 cent peep booths. Continue