The Times Square of today is a far cry from what it looked like 25 years ago. 

Artist Arnie Charnick captures the evolution in a series of murals at the Edison Hotel.  

"I preceded to do three full color, big scale drawings, ugh, full color of my concept of the history of Times Square in three time periods," he said.  

"The subject of Times Square, when I started to look into it, was excessive in data, and excessive in history, and all of that. So how am I going to decide what to put in there. So I had to make a lot of decisions about what to put in. Some of them are iconic and some of them are personal," Charnick Said. 

The first mural, painted in sepia tones, recalls the early days of Broadway and Vaudeville.

The second recreates the iconic and euphoric kiss...when world war two ended.

The third portrays what Charnick calls the seedy era, viewed through a Cab window, of x-rated movie houses and peep shows. 

"I think of it as one piece with three parts. There are some images, some actual images, and symbols, and even movement that lead your eye from one to the next," he said. 

Charnick began painting murals when he was ten years old in the Bronx.

He painted cartoon characters on the bare walls in a friend's basement. 

"There was bugs bunny, Yosemite Sam, Daffy Duck huge figures of them. That was my first mural and my mother let me paint a mural on her living room wall when I was twelve," he said. 

40 years later, in 1991, he was chosen to create a mural in the renovated lobby of the Edison Hotel. 

"I feel lucky," Charnick said.

He hopes to keep the history of Times Square alive through this passageway.