Peep O-Rama - Times Square Visitors Center - New York, NY - Roadside Attractions on Waymarking.com

The 6,000 square foot Times Square Visitors Center is located in the old Embassy Theater, a New York City landmark. The center offers the usual visitors services such as: providing citywide information, brochures and maps, purchase of tickets to Broadway shows, booking bus and boat sightseeing tours, a bookstore that sells books, posters, memorabilia and gifts.

In 2010, they added a free 1.1 million dollar museum with exhibits that tell the story of Times Square. Visitors can see the famous Crystal Ball from the 100th New Year's Eve celebration, the wall of "Hopes and Dreams," where visitors leave messages pinned to the wall and an iconic glimpse of Time Square's past - the Peep O-Rama.

The Peep O-Rama recalls Time Square's raunchy past when when "massage parlors", triple X movies, live nude women shows, and peep booths pervaded the area. When the area was restored and reinvented to make it family friendly, the original Peep O-Rama was saved to give visitors a glimpse of what Times Square was like at it's nadir in the 1970's. However, the material presently on display in the Peep O-Rama booths at the visitors center is quite benign.

The lighted glass panel explains the history of the Peep O-Rama:

The Peep-O-Rama sign above
once stood at 121 West 42nd Street,
above the last adult emporium on
42nd Street, which closed in July
2002. Much like the Mutoscopes
which flourished a century before
in Times Square, the “peep booths”
allowed people, with the drop of
a coin and the aid of then cutting-
edge technology, to view the
forbidden and to feed their fantasies.
Booths like those at left allowed
people to be watched by others
even as they were watching images
on the screen before them.

Peep O-Rama sign gift of the Durst Organization