Times Square roulette : remaking the city icon / Lynne B. Sagalyn.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sagalyn, Lynne B.

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

City planning--New York (State)--New York.

City planning.

Tourism and city planning.

Urban renewal.

New York (State)--New York.

Urban renewal--New York (State)--New York.

Tourism and city planning--New York (State)--New York.

Times Square (New York, N.Y.).

New York (N.Y.)--Politics and government.

New York (N.Y.).

National Book Committee.

Politics and government.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

xviii, 620 pages : illustrations (some color), maps ; 29 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 2001.

Summary:

The spectacularly successful transformation of Times Square has become a model for other cities. From its beginning as Longacre Square. Times Square's commercialism, signage, cultural diversity, and social tolerance have been deeply embedded in New York City's psyche. Its symbolic role guaranteed that any plan for its renewal would push the hot buttons of public controversy: free speech, property-taking through eminent domain, development density, tax subsidy, and historic preservation.

In Times Square Roulette, Lynne Sagalyn debunks the myth of an overnight urban miracle performed by Disney and Mayor Giuliani, to tell the far more complex and commanding tale of a twenty-year process of public controversy, nonstop litigation, and seemingly interminable delay. She tells how the troubled execution of the original redevelopment plan provided a rare opportunity to rescript it. And timing was all: The mid-1990s saw rising international corporate interest in the city as a mecca for mass-market entertainment and synergistic merchandising. Sagalyn details the complex relationship between planning and polities and the role of market forces in shaping Times Square's redevelopment opportunities. She shows how policy was wedded to deal making and how persistent individuals and groups forged both.

Contents:

Part I Planning: Creating Agents of Change 1

1 Staging a Transformation 2

2 The Late Great White Way 30

3 The Public Takes Charge 68

4 Deals for Development 104

5 The Open Tab 134

Part II Implementation: The Politics of Complex Ambitions 169

6 Troubled Execution 170

7 The Litigation Trap 206

8 Rescripting Renewal 238

9 Inventing an Entertainment Agenda 276

10 Business Buys Broadway 308

11 Disney Deliverance 338

Part III Policy Scorecard: Assessing the Gamble 373

12 The Reluctant Risk Taker 374

13 Quiescent Policy Dilemmas 408

14 The Messages of Renewal 442

B Executive Administrations 593

C Policy Strategies and Public Actions to Improve Conditions in Times Square 594

D Chronology of the Redevelopment of Times Square and West 42nd Street 597

E Formal and Informal Points of Accountability 602

F New Private Investment on West 42nd Street 605.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Gotham Book Mart Collection copy has dustjacket retained.

ISBN:

0262194627 :

OCLC:

46928826