Times Square Desnudas Say They're Ambassadors For NYC, Not Nuisances

Times Square has been carved up into designated zones for performers to hawk wares and solicit tips, and the NYPD continues to rigorously police the tourist-filled neighborhood. Yet desnudas, the women who pose topless, still find themselves the target of tabloids and a coalition of local businesses.

"When I woke up this morning I had so many tags on Facebook," said desnuda Angel Bunting, 34. "It was really disheartening."

"What about the fact that we're giving people recommendations every day?" said desnuda Saira Nicole, 30. "We're recommending clubs and restaurants. We're ambassadors of the city."

Monday was Bunting and Nicole's first evening on the job after the New York Post ran a story headlined "Desnudas have gone wild in Times Square." In it, the tabloid describes "des-RUDE-as" and costumed characters "still brazenly holding the Crossroads of the World hostage," aggressively demanding tips and cursing at tourists. Concurrent Daily Mail coverage pulled stock images of Bunting and her friend Amanda Roman, 25, who isn't working the square this year.

"The pictures that they used of me and Amanda, they went to Google images," Bunting surmised. "As far as they know, they can be posting pictures of girls that don't even work out here. That's inflammatory."

Monday's Post coverage also accused desnudas and costumed characters of straying without consequence from the so-called Designated Activity Zones: teal-painted boxes throughout Times Square where performers are required to make money transactions under threat of fines.

"I can go wherever I want to as long as the money and, depending on the officers who are out here, the pictures, are in the box," Bunting said. "I can't teleport from box to box."

The DAZs were established last summer with the hearty support of the business-friendly Times Square Alliance, following a tabloid-fueled morality crisis the previous summer.

Arrests of costumed characters plummeted in the first year of DAZ enforcement, according to a recent DNAInfo analysis. There were eight arrests between June 2016 and 2017, compared to 36 between June 2015 and June 2016. Meanwhile, DAZ-related summonses are on the rise. There have been 169 this year-to-date, compared to 137 during the same period last year.

The Times Square Alliance says aggressive solicitation persists, and has called for an enforcement ramp-up. The group conducts frequent surveys of tourists, New Yorkers and local business owners, and stated to the Post this week that "65 percent of New Yorkers in Times Square reported having a negative experience of this type within the past three months."

Alliance President Tim Tompkins told Gothamist that while "one doesn't always get a lot of nuance from the Post," he is "tired of seeing people get touched without consent."

"We believe the entire act of soliciting people—taking a picture, taking money—is all of-a-piece," he added.

"If a cartoon character takes a picture outside the zone but never solicits money, that is not a violation," countered Chief of Patrol Terry Monahan at a press conference Tuesday. "They can go up to people outside the zone, talk to them, see if they want to come into the zone and take a picture, and then solicit money—that would not be a violation of law."

Antonio Hernandez, a ticket seller for Big Bus, told Gothamist this week that he's sympathetic to both performers and tourists. While some performers are aggressive, "They're trying to make money like anybody else," he said.

"Tourists sometimes are aggressive, due to the fact that they come from the airplane and the train, so they come with stress on them," he added. "Before they even get to their hotel they have people saying, 'Oh you guys want to get on the bus, you want to do this?'"

Mayor de Blasio, who called for a crackdown on costumed characters and desnudas in 2015, took a less proactive stance on Tuesday. "I think the New York Post thinks there's a resurgence because they like putting naked ladies on the cover of their newspaper," he told reporters.

This sort of tabloid coverage starts a now-familiar chain reaction, according to Robert Burck, a.k.a. the Naked Cowboy. "I was here the very next day after it ran and there were at least five news channels out here doing interview after interview," he said. "Because of that they [the desnudas pictured in the Post] are all gone."

"They have problems because of [what was on] the television," added Minnie Mouse impersonator Maria Rankel Tuesday.

Bunting, Nicole, and their partner desnuda, 19-year-old Jamie Lee Leary, vacillated Monday between defending all desnudas against rude tourists, and distancing themselves from desnudas who they consider to be less "classy."

Nicole and Bunting, both New Yorkers, also described the other women as foreigners, and made assumptions about their approach to the job. "At the end of the day, because you're not representing a place that you are from... that's why you don't mind being seen in the newspaper holding your middle finger up and pointing to money," Nicole suggested.

Leary, from Long Island, said she recently encouraged a group of boys to approach other desnudas. Leary had agreed to give the boys a free picture, and had a hunch the other women wouldn't. "We all fight to show people how different we are," she said bluntly.

A solo desnuda posing for tips Monday evening and Tuesday afternoon, the only desnuda present outside Bunting's group, declined multiple requests for comment.

Bunting, Nicole and Leavy had the large DAZ at 46th Street and Broadway to themselves Tuesday evening. "It was great last night," Bunting said. "Just us, no other girls here. We had a good time. We made money. It was good." They didn't comment on how much they earned.

Additional reporting by Maya Rajamani.