2005/06/15 Council Agenda Packet

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ADULT ENTERTAINMENT IN TIMES SQUARE Times Square has long been known as a place for popular amusements from movies and theatre to flea circuses and video arcades. It has always attracted people of all incomes and tastes. But its history as a place of concentrated sex-related businesses really begins in the late 1960s and 1970s. The. concentration of. massage parlors, nude five entertainments, erotic bookstores, X-rated movies, and peep shows increased at that time to such an extent that Times Square began to be called "a sinkhole". (The Daily News, August 14, 1975.) The resulting crimes, assaults, and other violence made Times Square the highest crime area in the city. The numbers of sex-related businesses in Times Square and its environs reached as high, by some estimates,' as 140 in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the 1970s the commercial and residential communities united to combat this blight by staging demonstrations and rallies, by sponsoring legislation, and, perhaps most important, by organizing themselves into the Mayor's Midtown Citizens' Committee, and in helping to create the Office of Midtown Enforcement. The negative image of Times Square created by the increasing concentration of adult entertainment uses, coupled with pessimistic economic indicators, all contributed to a sense of decline on 42nd Street and the surrounding blocks. In 1977, the City Planning Commission attempted to reduce the existing concentration of adult use businesses and to prevent future concentrations. Stimulated in part .by the situation in Times Square, the Commission passed new zoning amendments to disperse such concentrations and to regulate their proximity to residential districts. The adverse economic and social effects produced by these concentrations were documented by findings of higher tax arrears .on 42nd Street. compared to the rest of midtown, declining sales tax revenue, and increases in criminal activity in Times Square. This zoning attempt failed at the last minute at the Board of Estimate. But in the early 80s, several factors converged to -stimulate a dramatic reduction in adult use establishments on 42nd Street and throughout Times Square. The. State declared 42nd Street a "blighted area", and announced its intention to condemn numerous properties, including pornography shops, in order to stage the Urban Development Corporation's 42nd Street Development Project. Although litigation slowed down the project, most of the street has now been condemned and emptied of all uses. E VER00195 9