BUST THIS FLESH PIT
Growing surge of topless hustlers defiles city
AN OUT-OF-CONTROL influx of near-naked women jockeying for tips has turned Times Square into the XXX-Roads of the World — shocking children and incensing legions of tourists and New Yorkers alike.
The expanding cadre of topless talent — wearing only a thong, a thin layer of paint and a smile — fight it out with the usual cast of amateur Buzz Lightyears and Spider-Men for souvenir photographs at $10 to $20 a pop.
“It’s inappropriate,” fumed Odessa Leitch, 38, watching the provocative parade of ladies with her 12-year-son and 3-year-old daughter at her side.
“Oooh,” added her stunned son, Tyler George, “there are little kids around here.”
Last summer, random Saturday night tallies of near-naked women in the area found 21 working between May 24 and Aug. 2. This year, between May 30 and July 14, their numbers nearly doubled to 40 as the line between tasteful nudity and blatant exhibitionism became ever blurrier.
Most of the ladies, in a patriotic show of pulchritude, sport the American flag across their breasts — but a growing number of critics aren’t saluting their multicolored mammaries.
Gripers says the women are shakedown artists, aggressively trying to collect a tip in return for a brief Broadway photo op.
“I understand New York is all about self-expression,” said Parfait Mutimura, a New York banker who objected to the topless troupe working Saturday.
“But there are a lot of kids out here,” he said. “They could keep these women in a different spot, away from the Disney characters, but they wouldn’t make as much money. That’s what this is about, right?”
Even the Naked Cowboy has seen enough.
“There’s so many boobs,” sighed Robert John Burck, “you
don’t look at them any more.”
Over two days, the topless ladies were spotted repeatedly surrounding groups of tourists — seemingly ignoring the presence of children.
Those who work with the women acknowledge they can ill afford to sit back and wait to be approached.
“It’s not a business, it’s a hustle,” said Chris Oliveri, 25, who works with one group of women. “If you’re not working from every angle, you’re not making money.”
The police are powerless to stop the daily open-air peep shows.
Public nudity in New York is legal as long as it’s part of a performance, exhibition or show, despite the objection of NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton.
“It drives me crazy when at Times Square you see the naked people there covered in body paint as an expression of art,” he told City & State magazine.
But Amanda, who teeters topless through Times Square for tips, disagrees with the city’s top cop. “There’s nothing sexual out there,” insisted the 23-year-old performer. “We are walking art.”
Amanda did her best to make her bare-breasted work sound wholesome — particularly compared with the city’s “gentlemen’s clubs.”
“The strip clubs are about sex, drinking and drugs,” she sniffed. “I don’t want to be part of that scene.”
Burck recalled a recent Saturday night when there were “at least 20 naked girls” working the crowded slice of Midtown. “As it gets later, it starts to take off, especially when it’s hot out,” said Burck. “Especially on the weekends. It’s nonstop.”
Mason Hunt, 37, of the Lower East Side, paints a crew of up to 10 ladies. He was among the first to turn loose the near-naked women who are now Times Square fixtures.
“When you have something so good, it’s going to explode,” explained Hunt. “It’s artwork, expressing the most beautiful thing in the world — a naked woman’s body.”
The competition is getting fierce for the cash of gawking out-oftowners or random passersby. Some of the women are accompanied by male muscle to ensure nobody snags a free photo or sneaks a selfie.
One topless temptress goes so far as to softly caress tourists with a feather to get their . . . attention.
Tourist Sarah Lorei’s eyes went wide Saturday as one of the nearly-nudes sauntered past her and her 4-year-old daughter.
“It is offensive,” said Lorei, 40, of Harrisburg, Pa. “It doesn’t make me feel so angry that I want to leave, but I wasn’t really expecting to see anything like that.
“Naked women walking around is for Las Vegas, not New York.”