70'S | PRO-KEDS: YOU CAN SCORE TOO

"Short stories that are the best I’ve ever seen about Times Square. I couldn't put it down. I recommended [Friedman] for a Pulitzer Prize." 
Show Business magazine about "Tales Of Time Square" by Josh Alan Friedman

Author/journalist/editor/musician Josh Alan Friedman never got the Pulitzer but his book stands as a very entertaining piece of history. Here's a different view of the still popular Pro-Keds sneakers.



Keds


The drug-pitch skells would rather tear off with a wallet than transact an actual exchange, and they make the teenage chicken fags seem like the most discreet commodity on the street. Fifteen ghetto guerrillas wearing Pro-Keds (what transit cops call “felony sneakers”) swoop down on a victim, then scatter back into subway oblivion.
Josh Alan Friedman
[From: Tales Of Time Square, Delacorte Press, 1986/Feral House, 2007)



1968 | Pro-Keds. If you're really serious
Whatever you are doing


Other kids may wash windshields on 42nd Street, but these are minstrels. Street urchins without parental guidance. They have no ghetto blasters, no rap or funk tracks to dance to, which makes them an a cappella dance troupe. All of them wear slum-certified Keds sneakers, and know how to walk on the insides of their ankles, an old comedian’s trick that is their most advanced move.
Josh Alan Friedman
[From: Tales Of Time Square, Delacorte Press, 1986/Feral House, 2007)


Converse All Star Chuck Taylor V/S Keds
[Feat. The Ramones]


1954 | Pro-Keds | Detail


 

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