2005/06/15 Council Agenda Packet

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY BACKGROUND After a dramatic decline in the number of adult use businesses in Times Square from an all-time high of approximately 140 in the late 1970s to 36 in June, 1993, the business and adjacent residential communities view with concern the increase to 43 in the last few months. The area of concentration of these businesses has shrunk and shifted from Broadway and Seventh Avenue to Eighth Avenue and the western edge of 42nd Street block between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. This summer the City and State. will begin condemnation procedures against the remaining private parcel�\ on the northeast comer of 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue. This action will reduce the overall number but displacement onto Eighth Avenue is possible. Times. Square is one of the City's most eclectic and vibrant commercial areas, producing extraordinary economic fuel and firing the imaginations of millions worldwide as the intemational icon of vitality and vibrancy. Times Square is home to some of the City's major corporations with more than 30 million square feet of office space. The BID represents approximately 400 property owners and 5,000 businesses including giant entertainment companies, international security firms, large law ,firms, theatrical agents and publishers. Times Square has a daily pedestrian count of 1.5 million people. It is the capital of legitimate theater for the nation with 37 Broadway theaters and a total of 25,000 seats. These theaters together sell some 8 million tickets annually, pumping $2.3 billion Into the New York City economy annually. . Approximately 20 hotels with 12,500 hotel rooms (one-fifth of all hotel rooms in Manhattan) house some five million. visitors a year and more than 200 restaurants, the largest concentration in any City neighborhood, serve them and local patrons. The Convention and Visitors' Bureau estimates 20 million tourists come to Times Square annually. But Times Square is also home for thousands of residents who live within its heart or immediately adjacent to it. The BID alone has six churches within its boundaries. Among the 25,651 people who live in six census tracts which include 42nd to 544th from Sixth to Tenth Avenues, 15.4% are 62 years or older which is similar to Manhattan as a whole and to the two community districts (CB4 and CB5) in which Times Square exists. In 1990 nearly 2,000 children under the age of 14 lived in this area, too. Both old and young are generally circumscribed by their immediate community. The Census data also show that 48% of these residents work within less than half an hour from their homes and walk to work, spending both their EVER00183