The Unknown City: Contesting Architecture and Social Space

2.1 | “Clean as a whistle.” The
BID cleans up New Times Square.
2.2 | (detail, next page)
In the late 1990s, Manhattan shows signs of suffering from a series of
“Disneyfications” and theme park simulations. Times Square/42nd Street,
for example, the meeting of two triangles that form an X at 42nd Street, was
once the popular entertainment district of vaudeville and the Broadway theater.
This rowdy playground has been the central public place where New
Yorkers have celebrated New Year’s Eve since the early twentieth century.
Frequented by thousands of daily commuters who arrive via its labyrinthian
subway system, Times Square/42nd Street has been rendered by Disney and
turned into a wax museum with the likes of Madame Tussaud’s. It is regulated
by guidelines that call for a requisite number of Lutses (light units in
Times Square) and controlled by urban designers who have planned its
spontaneous unplannedness. Times Square/42nd Street has become Disney’s
“New York Land.” Patrolled by private policemen, its garbage picked up by
private collectors, and its signage refurbished by private allocations—under
the general guidelines set down by its Business Investment District
(BID)—it is as clean and pure as a whistle.
How has this happened to such an iconic place of popular culture?
Will Times Square/42nd Street survive, its competitive chaos and toughguy
allure holding out against the latest onslaught of improvement