Prudishness at an inadvertent peep show is "a tremendous indicator of how much the neighborhood has changed, " she said.

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"The fact of the matter is, if you want to be anonymous, you're still better off at the peep show, " Jillette said.

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Lubar says it took more than 125 years to transform objects collected the night of President Abraham Lincoln's assassination from ghoulish peep show to history lesson.

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Merry Widdo Kiddo, the famous peep-show girl, warmed up her booth, breasts twirling like pinwheels behind the glass.

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"If you founded a hedge fund, when you sold it you were treated worse than if you owned a peep-show business, " said John Raffaelli, a Democratic fund-raiser and lobbyist for the hedge-fund industry.

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