Last week, out of a perceived need to respond to concerns that quality of life is deteriorating in the city, Mayor Bill de Blasio went after the semi-naked women of Times Square known as desnudas, the latest incarnation of subversive go-getter. The women mill about the pedestrian plazas in thongs, with feathered headdresses and painted breasts, posing alongside tourists and expecting money in return. Their counterparts are men and women who dress up as Minnie Mouse or Iron Man or Woody from “Toy Story” and stand beside children as parents take pictures and provide tips. At a news conference, Mr. de Blasio expressed displeasure with the whole scene in Times Square, saying that the city would “address it in a very aggressive manner.”

The people soliciting there with their clothes off, or in the case of those dressed as cartoon characters, stiflingly on, are mostly immigrants. (It hardly bears remarking that if you had something better to do than stand around in skintight, head-to-toe spandex in 95-degree heat, you’d probably be doing it.) Many speak little English. A day after the mayor’s proclamation, one of the desnudas working just below Seventh Avenue and 43rd Street was counseling two others who had gotten dressed. The two women spoke Spanish and were concerned not about the police — being topless in New York City is not illegal — but about officers from the Labor Department who were said to be around. The women didn’t fear getting kicked out of Times Square, necessarily: They feared getting deported.

The desnudas working just south of 43rd Street argue that it is the women working north of 43rd Street who have poisoned the pool. They are the ones harassing men for $20 tips, the claim goes, and they are the ones who have attracted the negative attention. On the south side, mild flirtation and the soft sell prevail, apparently. Outside of Toys “R” Us, where the cartoon characters congregate, families are as likely to approach the costumed figures to ask for photographs as the characters are to make the move.

On Wednesday afternoon, I met Joshua Bentley, a 19-year-old of Nicaraguan and Saudi parentage who has been working in costume in Times Square for four years. He currently outfits himself as Spider-Man and averages about $9 an hour.

“I don’t get what they want people to do,” he told me, “to work, or to steal and deal drugs?” Efforts to find minimum-wage work have failed him. “I go,” he said, “and there are 20 people in line in front of me also waiting to get a job.”