DIMENSIONS
For approximately 24 years, Show World stood fully erect like Greek statuary on the corner of 8th Avenue and 42nd Street. The definitive pornographic department store, Show World was shocking, explicit, yet sophisticated; at bargain basement prices. On the surface Show World appeared to be a garish porno house that professed a unique theatricality, with a repertory unlike any other. In a testament to its smuttiness, the marquee itself flashed lewd pronouncements of blatant carnality thoroughly unheard of at the time. Attracted by the irresistible neon-lit blurbs, an onlooker only had to imagine the multitude of stimulation that lurked deep inside.
Then upon entrance, furtive thrills flooded your senses. Patrons were introduced to an extravaganza of ejaculate proportions. Snippets of blue movies in peep-viewing booths for 25 cents, without any stigma attached. Fantasies and wet dreams for a fraction of a dollar, with customers encouraged to squirt accumulations of lust, which a porter quickly removed with the thrust; of a mop. Thus quipped a Show World cashier: ‘You drop it, we mop it.’
But the (4) floors of Show World were actually like tiers on a naughty cake; each an echelon onto itself, attracted a discriminating clientele comprised of all walks of life; among them businessman, tourists, blue-collar workers, bus drivers, doctors, lawyers, and naturally a few bums now and then, all insatiably stricken with particles of lust. In this section we explore each separate dimension of indecency within Show World, and how these attractions originated; the most of which were ascribed to owner Richard Basciano.