“America’s religion is money… if you don’t have money, you’re just nothing – a used condom.” So proclaims one of the many denizens of the “Crossroads of the World” documented in Richard Sandler’s astounding, two-hour odyssey THE GODS OF TIMES SQUARE.

A visual spectacle, THE GODS OF TIMES SQUARE is a dizzying tour down the late-20th Century Deuce, with vertiginous, kaleidoscopic B-roll… as chaotic and exciting as any late-night dissent into the district: shots of condemned buildings adorned with Calvin Klein ads and shuttered, once glorious movie palaces featuring Jenny Holzer’s dystopian haiku on their marquees. Sandler, who spent decades capturing NYC streets via his black & white still images, embraces the inhabitants of this forsaken zone and asks deeply empathetic questions with an earnest curiosity about and concern for the human condition. Says one pseudo-prophet, “God has directed us to meet here.”

And we meet born-again zealots of all denominations: gospel-singing buskers, unhoused shamans, wannabe priests, makeshift rabbis, phony evangelicals, and an alcoholic, self-described “porno addict.” (“I love Lucifer’s kinkiness.”) Most heartbreaking is “Jim,” who’s convinced that he is Jesus incarnate and, in 1994, will marry Madonna (the pop icon, not the mother of God), release a triple-platinum grunge album, then “enter into international affairs.”

Shot over six years during the most significant transition of power and property in the neighborhood’s history, THE GODS OF TIMES SQUARE features a second-act eulogy for Frank Hakim and his restaurant Grand Luncheonette, located adjacent to the Selwyn Theatre’s lobby, which he was forced to close after 58 years in operation. Frank’s wife laments, “There is no room on the same block for Walt Disney and us.”

Profoundly elegiac, THE GODS OF TIMES SQUARE affirms the breadth and mystery of humanity – urban or otherwise. At one point, Richard and a bystander conclude, while watching a man defecating in the gutter outside of the Howard Johnson’s, that “everybody’s equal in shit.”

This restoration, made possible by Jake Perlin and The Safdie Brothers, commemorates an undeniably urgent and vital moment in documentary filmmaking and New York history. Says Josh Safdie of Richard Sandler’s masterpiece:

“Once upon a time, town squares were comment sections, where people brave enough to shout their opinions did it face to face.  There is no stronger belief than one’s faith, and what used to be Times Square was a town square on steroids.  As the 20th century came to an end, we entered the corporatized Y2K age.  Spirituality seemed an essential grounding force, something to unify us.  But whose God is supreme? What is God? What is God’s place in the digital age? When Disney invaded Times Square, it went up against the smut.  It was a magnet for all things good and bad.  It was hell with attractions.  I still secretly wish to be yelled at whenever I enter Times Square…”