The Forty-second Street Development Project, which included the Walt Disney Company, started an aggressive campaign to revamp the neighborhood’s image by getting rid of the city’s undesirables (gays, drug addicts, homeless). As a result, this environment of hypersexuality and rampant drug abuse significantly devalued the surrounding real estates. However, this licentious space faced almost no legal opposition from the government. However, more “static” establishments, such as sex shops, porn stores, and massage parlors, proliferated during this period. In this way, many elites were able to successfully live with double standards.īy the 1970s and 1980s, gay culture was still thriving during this era. Thus, city class elites secretly came into the promiscuous space to take part in the counternormative culture – a practice known as slumming. This aspect of gay culture catered to customers in two ways – 1) transgendered-looking “fairy prostitutes” attracted tourists and members of the German and Italian communities and 2) more sophisticated prostitutes solicited middle-class gay businessmen. During the 1920s, Times Square, already known as the market for female prostitution, became also known as the city’s center for male prostitution.
Yet, during this time, corruption, gambling and prostitution were rampant and specific blocks became known for erotic and criminal activities. “In order to bring about this redevelopment, the city has instituted not only a violent reconfiguration of its own landscape but also a legal and moral revamping of its own discursive structures, changing laws about sex, health and zoning, in the course of which it has been willing, and even anxious, to exploit everything from homophobia and AIDS to family values and fear of drugs.” Īt the turn of the century and during the Roaring 20s, Times Square was part of the “Tenderloin” districts of NYC – one of the most desirable lands of the city. Urban renewal in this grandiose yet crucial space throughout the decades has been significant.
However, Times Square was not always the neon-flashing epicenter that it is known today – its sordid past lays in the underground yet mainstream culture of the commodification of sex, drugs, and prostitution. Times Square is one of the iconic sites of New York City, as it is home to the unforgettable theaters and upscale hotels. Today, tourists can enjoy the sights, thriving street culture as well as the theater cultures of NYC (Grayson Maldonado and Dalue Song). 3) Tourists seen taking a picture with the Naked Cowboy. Sex shops, peep shows, sex theater houses, drug deals and gay and straight prostitution canvassed the landscape of Times Square make the area one of the most “dangerous” neighborhoods of NYC (The ). 2) 1970 saw Times Square as one of the centers of the gay and sex cultures in NYC surpassing its predecessor, Union Square. 1) A view of Times Square in the 1920s ().