Now, according to The New 42nd Street, there are more than 100,000 pedestrians on the street on a given day, and 5,000 legitimate theater seats in use. “We found people pushing strollers rather than pushing drugs on the street,” Cahan said. “It was the kind of street that people told their kids to stay away from.”īy 1995, however, the group had reopened the street’s least desirable theater as the New Victory Theater, the city’s first theater catering solely to children and families. “This street was sex shops and paraphernalia shops and triple X porn shops,” Cahan said. In 1990, the city established The New 42nd Street, a nonprofit dedicated to the revitalization of 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues – arguably Times Square’s most dangerous and seedy area.Ĭora Cahan, a native New Yorker and president of The New 42nd Street, said her organization had the challenge of finding new uses for the old theaters on the block – no small task considering the neighborhood’s nefarious reputation. New York City and state governments joined forces to try to revitalize and reinvent Times Square, and Tompkins said they employed just about every economic development tool that had been used in the last century – from tax breaks and zoning laws to a law requiring property owners to put advertising on their buildings. “Times Square was this symbol of whether the government had either the will or the capacity to make a city safe.”Īs the decade drew to a close, it became apparent that the will (at least as far as Times Square was concerned) was definitely there. “And here you had a place that had all the Broadway theaters, the greatest concentration of live entertainment, and none of those positive things could be seen or were overshadowed by how dangerous the city was. “Throughout New York City, crime was a huge issue that was making people stay away, and despite the incredible assets of New York, that overshadowed everything else,” Tompkins said. Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance, said the area was then – and has always been – representative of what was working or not working in New York City as a whole. In 1981, Rolling Stone magazine called West 42nd Street, located in the heart of Times Square, the “sleaziest block in America.” Many local theaters – once legitimate operations showcasing the performances of renowned actors like Lionel Barrymore – had become home to peep shows and porn movies. The sex market and drug trade thrived in the area, and homeless encampments dotted its streets. In the 1980s, New York City’s Times Square wasn’t so much the “Crossroads of the World” as it was the wrong side of the tracks.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |