Well, it's also a producer's job to make money. They are not necessarily to blame for the terrible things that happened to Times Square in the 80s.
There are always bad things that happen to cities in the mindset of urban development. Lots of cities destroyed their very fabric with ill-conceived construction and terrible demolition, particularly in the '60s, '70s and '80s. New York City is no exception. Penn Station is the most conspicuous example... tearing down a magnificent building that made you feel like you were being welcomed into the greatest city in the world, to the current complex that makes you feel like you are scurrying in like a rat.
There was a mindset around Times Square in the 70s that if you can't clean up the streets, it was time to knock everything down and start over. Broadway and Seventh Avenue were once lined with an eccentric assortment of low-slung commercial structures, and small office buildings. Now, it's a windy canyon with soulless office buildings with neon signs draped around their ankles, meant to convey the spirit of what was lost. The Marriott Marquis is a particularly horrendous example of mid 80s construction, wrong-headed in design, location, scale, purpose. It just ruins the block, blotting out sunlight, like a hulking grey mass. It's a building with no connection to its neighborhood or immediate surroundings. Once inside, you could literally be anywhere in the United States.
The Marriott was meant to spearhead redevelopment of the Times Square district. But it did so by wrongheadedly taking out three active Broadway theatres, the heart, soul and lifeblood of the neighborhood, even if the theatre district is cleaner, safer and more tourist-friendly than it was. The good that came out of the destruction of the Morosco, Helen Hayes and Bijou is the interior and exterior landmark status now granted to almost all of the surviving vintage playhouses in the area, so that other theatres will not fall to the wrecking ball. But the loss of those theatres, and the blight of the Marriott's physical presence is still a major miscalculation of urban renewal.
Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.
Updated On: 12/12/07 at 09:46 PM
