MIDTOWN — Times Square, “Crossroads of the World,” douses its visitors with countless images, some of them quite edgy.
Beneath glitzy advertising splayed on jumbo digital screens is a legion of costumed characters. Taking a right onto West 46th Street, a visitor passes several Broadway venues, like the Richard Rodgers Theatre, where “Hamilton” is showing.
Further down the street is the Church of Scientology of New York.
A few steps from there is a sign for Times Square Tattoo.
This body-art shop is unique to its environment, featuring accompanying 17-inch signs of the front and back of the Miraculous Medal of Our Lady of Graces — commonly called the “Miraculous Medal.”
That’s because the owner, Tommy Houlihan, has a special devotion to Mary.
“My shop is open six days a week, and it’s a ministry for the Miraculous Medal of the Blessed Mother,” Houlihan said. “It’s a ministry first, then it’s a tattoo shop.”
Houlihan said the shop is likely the only Catholic ministry with a significant presence in Times Square. “I can’t think of another,” he said.
Houlihan estimates that as many as 100,000 tourists from all over the world wander through Times Square each day.
When they see his signs, he said, they’re inspired to come inside and get a tattoo to commemorate their trips to New York City.
Starting at around $50, one can get skin inked with simple motifs, such as the “Big Apple” or the city’s famous skyline. Customers pay considerably more for elaborate and more time-consuming designs.
However, Houlihan offers each customer a Miraculous Medal, regardless of whether they get a tattoo.
The medals, stored in two glass jars on the counter, are all blessed by priests.
“I buy them usually 800 at a time,” Houlihan said. “I’ll [then] bring them to a Mass, and any priest can bless them.”
The Miraculous Medal, he explained, offers graces he wants customers to receive.
“If they’re bad Catholics, I hope they become good Catholics,” Houlihan said. “If they’re good Catholics, I want them to become great Catholics. And if they’re not Catholic at all, I’m hoping for a conversion.
“Instant conversions — first and foremost, that’s what I’m hoping for.”
In 1830, according to tradition, a novice in Paris, who became St. Catherine Labouré, received an apparition of the Blessed Mother. Mary instructed her to share a directive to create the Miraculous Medal of Our Lady of Graces.
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Each medal carries the inscription: “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” St. Catherine became a nun with the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul and spent the rest of her life caring for the elderly.
Now, in the 21st century, Houlihan said he hopes the medals outshine ungodly images flowing throughout the neighborhood, which can be obvious or subtle.
“Walk into Times Square and look at the advertising,” he suggested. “It’s nothing but blasphemy, after blasphemy, after blasphemy. It’s an outright mockery of God.”
As for tattoos, Houlihan said he has also seen some that desecrate sacred images.
“I’ve seen people take images of the Blessed Mother and turn it into something filthy,” he said.
If a customer wants a tattoo like that, Houlihan declines to make it. Posted near the counter is a list of objectionable images. His apprentices check it for direction to identify things like satanic symbols, zodiac signs, or scenes from Broadway shows that include witchcraft or sorcery, such as “Wicked” and “Aladdin.”
“In Times Square, a lot of people want Harry Potter tattoos,” he said. “The spells in those books are real, not fake. So I can’t do anything that’s even remotely touching witchcraft or anything like that.”
Houlihan described a woman who recently asked him to ink an image that she said represented protection and prosperity. To him, the design looked like a symbol used in alchemy, though he said he wasn’t sure. He decided to err on the side of caution.
“I asked her who created that symbol,” Houlihan recalled. “She said, ‘I really don’t know.’ Then I said, ‘That’s why we’re not going to do it, but here’s your blessed Miraculous Medal.’ ”
Houlihan, 55, said he is a lifelong Catholic who grew up close to Times Square in the nearby Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. He said his mother shared with him her deep devotion to Mary. Meanwhile, he developed artistic talents.
By age 12, he was getting paid to paint images of album covers from popular heavy metal bands like Iron Maiden on the backs of denim jackets. By 18, he had progressed into body art and turned himself into a canvas, inking his own tattoos.
Soon, he had a customer base. But despite his faith, he chose designs like “spooky skulls and creepy monsters — kid stuff,” he said.
Thirty years later, he covered those images with a repetitive design of black fish scales.
“I did a lot of stuff that I never really thought twice about,” Houlihan said. “Like, somebody would want a sexy angel on one shoulder and a sexy devil girl on the other. I was like, ‘Oh, no big deal.’ But it’s a huge deal. Both of those images are bad. One is sexualizing the angel, and the other one is a picture of Satan.”
Houlihan’s commitment to declining customer requests has cut into profits.
At one point, he considered getting out of tattoo work completely, until he had a conversation with an exorcist whom he declined to identify. He recalled telling the priest about the ungodly images swirling around Times Square, like a “den of vipers.”
The priest responded, “ ‘Well, you’re the antivenom,’ ” Houlihan said.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Times Square Tattoo served about 30 customers a day. Now he sees around half of that volume. He attributed the decline to competition from amateur artists using the new “tattoo wands,” not the traditional tattoo machines.
Still, Houlihan keeps the glass jars on the counter well stocked with Miraculous Medals, and then he gets to work.
“I gave this shop to the Blessed Mother,” he said, “She’ll deal with it how she sees fit.”
