2005/06/15 Council Agenda Packet

penalties from hotel operators) worked .to clean-up Times Square. According to the annual report, "At the end of 1983 Eighth Avenue is no longer `The Minnesota Strip,' infested with the crowds of pimps, prostitutes and johns which once thrived on the atmosphere created by the multiplicity of sex uses. The crowds are no longer there because most of the sex uses which supported or attracted them have been closed. X57 Between 1978 and 1983, ONE reported that it closed 106 illegal establishments, of which 82 were sex-related businesses. Additionally, they "virtually eliminated" the practice of sexually explicit handbilling on city streets, and after obtaining a zoning amendment establishing a permanent ban on heterosexual. mass age parlors, closed 37 illegally operated sex-related businesses in Midtown. After reducing the number of sex-related businesses in midtown by 46 percent from 121 in 1978 to 65 at the end of 1983, OME reported that its "accomplishments have resulted in increased investor and consumer confidence in the midtown area as manifested by: the renovation and expansion of the Port Authority Bus Terminal; the opening of the new Milford Plaza Hotel on Eighth Avenue; the construction of the Marriott Marquis Hotel on Broadway; and the proposed 42nd Street Development Project." The ONE Annual Report for 1983 also reported the criminal activity occurring in sex-related businesses. Convictions for prostitution occurring inside the premises are used by OME as a basis for civil litigation. Between 1978 and 1983, the numbers of arrests for prostitution and obscenity inside sex-related businesses located in Midtown decreased from 419 to 300. The change in the number of such arrests for any given year is a function of many factors, (e.g., deployment of police personnel, unrelated litigation defining obscenity) and reflects only in part the drop in the number of massage parlors and other commercially -operated houses of prostitution. It is significant, however, that the concentration of sex-related businesses has been closely associated with substantial numbers of arrests within those establishments for prostitution and obscenity. 57 It was found - in another study - that sex uses in the Times Square area supported hustling and hanging out on the street because of their configuration. The Final Environmental Impact Statement for the 42nd Street Development Project stated "most of these establishments present opaque facades to the street. This is presumably important to draw potential customers inside (rather than allowing them to look in) and also to provide some sense of privacy. The correlative, however, is that these operations do not look outwards or take a special interest in the sidewalks outside. As a result, and also because the sex -establishment patrons _ hurry in and out, the sidewalks are left unclaimed and thus available to those hustling and hanging out." Nev,, York State Urban Development Corporation, Vol. 1, August 1984- 37 984. 37 EVER00136