a working girl falls for

the hit Broadway musical "The Life." BY TRACY QUAN | on my last trip through Times Square, it occurred to me that instant nostalgia is far more decadent than instant sex. I was on my way to the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, where "The Life," a popular new musical about street prostitutes and pimps, opened last month. Timing could not be better. Recently, over dinner with friends, I reviled the "new" Times Square and found myself branded an economic prude. This version of Times Square is finally generating big bucks, after all. Who was I to stand in the way of progress? Wanting to preserve what's left of an authentic red-light district in the last days of the '90s is as retrograde as clinging to your virginity would have been in the '70s. But, in the sanitary afterglow of Times Square's reformation, New York is suddenly paying homage to its past. "The Life" is unashamedly sentimental about Times Square prostitution circa 1979. This requiem for the bad old days has been winning Tony nominations (12 to be exact), enchanting tourists and (despite some disapproving sniffs from critics) acquiring a local following. "The Life" is group therapy for New Yorkers who feel secretly humiliated by the city's encounter with Disney, and by the triumph of All-American kitsch over New York's quirky, erotic anarchy. In it, defiant street girls tunefully proclaim that "My body is nobody's business but my own," pimps strut their stuff at a mythic Hooker's Ball and many of the songs could be adopted as sex industry anthems. NEXT PAGE | Too much fun?