Times Square, rapidly on the upswing after years of dilapidation, is seeing the last of its peep shows vanish. Like the grindhouses and flesh peddlers of 42nd Street, these doomed relics of thwarted lust are now all but eradicated. Former stripper Sheila McClear recounts the history and social impact of these shows — where only a pane of glass and several unseen bodyguards were all that stood between live nude girls and the twitchy, shadowy men who salivated over them — in her book The Last of the Live Nude Girls: A Memoir. McClear tells of a time gone by in a place with a collapsing subculture juxtaposed against her own poignant coming-of-age story on the fringes of New York, New York, the town so violent they named it twice.

Tue., Aug. 23, 7 p.m., 2011

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