Richard Sandler, the Boy From Queens Who Fell in Love With Times Square

Richard Sandler's 1999 film "The Gods of Times Square" opens with the heads of zombie-like commuters, eyelids drooping, as their subway cars lurch forward. Teenagers kiss against the metal poles. On the platform, a man in a suit with a briefcase suddenly dashes through the turnstile, and a nun with a limp drags a metal chair across the concrete. Then she sits at the exit, the 42nd Street–Times Square sign hanging behind her, staring blankly ahead like Charon sitting at the gates of the underworld.

Past that gate, the camera cuts between pamphlets with titles like "DO NOT Go to Hell!" and a sign with the MTA's then-slogan, "MTA going your way!" The two phrases reflect the dueling and often complementary impulses of the people Sandler filmed in Times Square: the hordes who came to satisfy their vices at the porno theaters and sex shops, and the street preachers proselytizing on every corner.

"The Gods of Times Square" is Sandler's most famous film. Although it is relatively unknown, it is a certified classic among film lovers, observing the various proselytizers (Christians, Muslims, Jews for Jesus, Lubavitchers in a Mitzvah Tank, Hebrew Israelites, and a woman preaching daily orgasms, among others) who came to Times Square to spread their message. With a camera guided by Sandler's generous, curious attention and rigorous compositional expertise, the film is an homage to the truly public street life that is eroded every day in America but maintains its last bastion in New York City.