--- title: Topless in Times Square: Why One Woman Poses description: Lucky has been topless in Times Square for nearly four years. Here's why she does it. canonical: https://time.com/4004673/times-square-topless-deblasio-cuomo/ author: Tanya Basu article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-08-20T21:19:19.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:05:50.204Z og:title: Why One Woman Poses Topless in Times Square og:description: “I’m having fun and making good money," Lucky said. "You can’t beat that" og:url: https://time.com/4004673/times-square-topless-deblasio-cuomo/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3dce7eb67d04feb1/69886049524fc05adddf428b/times-square-topless-02.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2650 og:image:height: 1491 og:image:alt: Times Square Topless og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why One Woman Poses Topless in Times Square twitter:description: “I’m having fun and making good money," Lucky said. "You can’t beat that" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3dce7eb67d04feb1/69886049524fc05adddf428b/times-square-topless-02.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why One Woman Poses Topless in Times Square > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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The writer-actor-woodworker talks to TIME about his new book and how to restore decency to America_  by [Tanya Basu](https://time.com/author/tanya-basu/)  ## Tanya Basu Aug 20, 2015 9:19 PM UTC  Lucky, center, poses in Times Square in New York City on Aug. 19, 2015. Lucky, center, poses in Times Square in New York City on Aug. 19, 2015. Tanya Basu  by [Tanya Basu](https://time.com/author/tanya-basu/)  ## Tanya Basu Aug 20, 2015 9:19 PM UTC Walking through New York City’s Times Square at night, it’s hard to miss Lucky. The 21-year-old has blue-streaked blonde hair and wears skimpy black underwear, silver stilettos and—aside from red, white and blue body paint—nothing else. On a recent evening, she waved to passersby, flashed a grin, and asked, over and over: “Do you want a picture?” “I’m having fun and making good money,” Lucky, who asked to be identified by her performance name, said as she took a break from her work. “You can’t beat that.” Lucky is one of the _desnudas_, women who stroll topless in Times Square, attracting hoots and cheers from tourists and posing for photos in exchange for a tip. She’s from the South Bronx and began working as a desnuda shortly after she turned 18, drawn to the thrill of parading without clothes in one of the busiest intersections in the world. But her livelihood, along with that of the other Times Square densudas, is now under threat. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo both spoke out this week against the topless entertainers, objecting not to their exposed breasts but instead to allegations that they harass tourists to hand over tips. On Thursday, de Blasio [announced a taskforce to investigate the desnudas](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/21/nyregion/mayor-de-blasio-raises-prospect-of-removing-times-square-pedestrian-plazas.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&%5Fr=0), saying he would look for “legislative and regulatory solutions.” Cuomo separately [told a reporter](http://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2015/08/19/topless-women-in-times-square-need-to-go--cuomo-says.html), “This activity is illegal.” Lucky is not too worried about a potential crackdown yet; topless women have been legally protected in New York City since 1992, and she said she never pressures any of her customers for tips. “The mayor actually helped us, if anything,” Lucky said of the wave of publicity that has accompanied de Blasio’s attack on her trade. “I don’t know if he thought it would stop us in Times Square—it’s actually going way better than before the mayor even acknowledged us, to be honest.” When Lucky first started as a desnuda, she worked with a handler, who took up to 70% of her earnings. She soon tired of handing over hundreds of dollars at the end of each evening shift and struck out on her own, painting her body herself and keeping all the money she earns. She’s learned the ebb and flow of the business, taking off Mondays or Tuesdays because they’re slowest. “After a weekend, people are pretty much broke,” she said. “Nobody wants to pay a naked girl.” She fights back against anyone who thinks she doesn’t work hard, and said she budgets carefully to make the money last through the year. “You can have a bad day when you go home only with $100\. You can have a really good day when you go home with $1,000,” she said. “In the summertime, I save all the money. It’s impossible to spend $1,000 a day. In the wintertime, that’s my backup plan right there.” Although Lucky is a little concerned about the “bad apple” desnudas who are more aggressive ruining the Times Square scene for everyone, she said she’s planning to just keep doing her job. And with that, she stomped out her cigarette and stripped off her oversize “I Love NY” shirt, ready for another shift. “I love it. I do,” Lucky said, heading back to her busy corner in the center of Manhattan. “I like the expressions on people’s faces when they see me.” _Read next:_ [_New York Mayor Launches Task Force to Address Topless Women in Times Square_](http://time.com/4005809/de-blasio-taskforce-time-square-women/?iid=time%5Freadnext) [_Download TIME’s mobile app for iOS to have your world explained wherever you go_](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/time-mobile/id328218429) ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] What does the gumption mean to me, or how did it come to be the title of my book? It came organically. I came up with this list of great Americans that inspire me. I sort of considered what's going to tie them all together? What's going to make this into a book, and I determined that it was the sense of what I call gumption. Which is, it's kind of intangible. It involves ****, and courage, and stamina, and character, and integrity. There's something about each of these people's lives and the way they carried themselves that inspired me to want to emulate them. One of the main themes of the book is, how can we all continue to be more decent to one another. And so i have to point up the people who i feel are being mistreated which are minorities and people in the same sex relationships or women. Or eaters of red meat. In the theater, we learned very quickly that we represent everybody and so that's when these things start to do occur to me when i left my small town in Illinois of white People. And I got to the metropolis of Champaign- Urbana, Illinois, and I immediately saw people being discriminated against. And just knew friends in the theater department who were going through the trauma of just coming out to, say, their families. And I was like, hang on a second, you're an amazing, intelligent, beautiful person. And you like, youre, you wanna maybe commit suicide rather than tell your family that you, who you wanna kiss. That seems [ LAUGH ] it seems unfair. Feminism is an important quality i think in society in something that needs to be talked about until we can legitimately complain [ LAUGH ] Until the guys are like, hey, hang on, you're making more money than us. That's when we can talking about feminism. We are slowly evolving. Those of us, like with Yoko, who has spend her whole life saying, you know, we could all just get along. And Eleanor Roosevelt said the same thing. When she started working with the United Nations and it's all these boys around the table wanting to throw spears at each other and she said we could just sit around a table and try to figure this out and then nobody's kids get shot. Hoping to do my little bit towards helping us evolve toward It's a place where we put you in nature. 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