It would be those neon-lit dens of iniquity that she’d come across some of the more interesting and esoteric titles in the world of porn literature: Senator Swish, The Gay Exorcist and Home of the Gay. The Deuce, the forthcoming David Simon and George Pelecanos’ HBO series premiering in September, will take viewers to Times Square not the candy-colored tourist attraction of today, but the urban Sodom and Gomorrah of the disco era when it was home to peep shows, flop houses and a population that existed at some of the darkest fringes of the “City That Never Sleeps.” Seedy as it was, publisher and film scholar, Maitland McDonagh remembers those days fondly: a huge horror film fan, as a teen she spent hours walking its dirty streets, checking out the latest exploitation flicks in its rundown movie palaces and rifling through the strange offerings of its adult stores.
