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APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY <br />This study focuses on the Times Square Business Improvement District, but the <br />study concentrates more closely on the areas of adult use business concentration, <br />that is, 42nd Street from Seventh to Eighth Avenues, .and Eighth Avenue from 42nd <br />Street to 50th Streets, because more than half of all the District's adult use <br />businesses are located on these blocks. <br />:...Following secondary effects studies in other cities,. we combined available data <br />on property; values -and incidence of crime, plus in-person,and,telephone. interviews <br />with .a`road.range of diverse business and ,real estate -enterprises, including major <br />corporations, smaller retail stores, restaurants, theatres and hotels, as well as with <br />Community Boards,' block associations, activists and advocates, churches, schools <br />and social service agencies. <br />Gathering. Data, on Assessed Property Values - <br />To measure the possible impact of adult use businesses and the concentration <br />of such businesses in our study blocks, we sought data on the overall and specific <br />changes in assessed valuation of propertyfrom the tax period 1985-1986 to the most <br />recent 1993-1994 tax year. This, we felt, would give enough of a spread across real <br />estate cycles. The 1985-1986 data were the earliest computerized data available to <br />us from the Department of Finance .records. <br />The Department of Finance, however, could not provide reliable data on market <br />value • as opposed to assessed valuation. We were able to get, and have used, the <br />actual, not the billable, assessed values. The data contained information on tax block <br />and lot, building class, and street address. -We aggregated the actual valuation figures <br />by individual tax lots for Study and Control blockfronts for 1985 and. 1986, and for <br />1993.and 1994. From this we derived the percentage -of change between the two <br />benchmark years: , <br />For this part of the study, we narrowed our. focus to- four Study Blocks: three <br />blocks along Eighth Avenue, from 45th to 48th Street, and the 42nd Street Block <br />between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. As contrasting control blocks where no adult <br />use establishments exist, we chose the equivalent three blocks along Ninth Avenue, <br />and 42nd Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. We then compared both the <br />Study and Control blocks' data to similar statistics for all of Manhattan, and for all of <br />New York City, as well as for the BID and the wider Times Square area. <br />EVER00197 11 <br />