NT-3196

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The Eleventh Hour graphic and show opener.

Z'in the iconic Times Square New Year's Eve crystal ball, the year '1989' in large neon, "WNSR" sign . Robert Lipsyte narrates.

Theatre marquis - Circus Cinema flashing neon sitting above Marquis. marquis reads: Adults Only! 3 Big XXX hits, Hot French Lovers, Sexual Orgy III, Erotic Interludes

Host Lipsyte talks about today's show, New York's Times Square, the "heart of the City". He narrates about Times Square area weakened by crime over a black and white still photo of Times Square at night with a handgun overlay and crime stats in yellow overlayed over the gun.

Times Square Victory theatre marquis reads, "closed for renovations, will reopen May as first run movie theatre".

wide street corner shot, Don't Walk sign, peds walking, man smoking cigarette standing on corner, side view of newspaper stand, long row of theatre marquis can be seen.

Back in studio Host Robert Lipsyte introduces guests Carl Weisbrod, Head of 42nd Street Development for the Urban Development Corporation, and Paul Segal, Architect who opposes the new look. Close up shots of both guests.

INSERT INTERVIEW:

Robert Lipsyte:
Gentlemen, welcome. Paul, let me ask you specifically about 42nd Street. There is a sense among critics and, I even have it a little bit to that you're killing the street to save it.

Carl Weisbrod:
Well, we're not killing 42nd Street. 42nd Street between seventh and eighth Avenue has been not only as bad as your opening remarks indicated in the past year, but it's been the worst block in New York City for almost half a century now.

Robert Lipsyte:
The worst block in all of New York City including the South Bronx and Brownsville in Brooklyn?

Carl Weisbrod:
The single worst block in New York City in terms of reported crime, but reported crime I think, doesn't give a full sense of the problems of this block. It is the center for runaways, it is the center for drug addiction and drug sales- a thousand drug, drug arrests were reported on this one block alone last year.

Robert Lipsyte:
We call that really sounds like a police problem. And you're talking about putting out four giant buildings to solve crime.

Carl Weisbrod:
42nd Street has been a police problem, to be sure and it continues to be a police problem. It is the most patrolled block in New York City. It receives 60 manning level, of about 60 law enforcement officers a day and just over this past weekend, Commissioner Ben Ward announced the assignment of an additional hundred police to the immediate 42nd Street area. Police have not been able to solve the problem.

Robert Lipsyte:
So 160 cops can't do it but a $2.5 billion development. Paul, does that make sense to you?

Paul Segal:
It does make sense that we are to change that block, it doesn't make sense that that's the right way to do it. It doesn't for me for a couple of reasons. I think that what's special about New York is that it has different kinds of neighborhoods, has a Park Avenue that's corporate center, has residential neighborhoods, and it has an entertainment center. And I think that the strategy of preserving and enhancing the entertainment center by putting large corporate buildings in virtually the center of it is the wrong strategy. I think the buildings themselves are reasonably designed, in fact, well designed for the question that they were asked to solve. I think it's the wrong question.

Robert Lipsyte:
The wrong question I'm?

Paul Segal:
Well the they were asked to create great corporate headquarter buildings there.

Robert Lipsyte:
And you wouldn't put it there you would do what precisely would you make it more of an entertainment more porn more sleaze? What?

Paul Segal:
Well, I don't think you know, that's that's kind of a "do you still beat your wife?" question a little bit.

Robert Lipsyte:
Yeah, it is!

Paul Segal :
I don't think that to be a great entertainment center, and it's not only great Broadway theater, upscale entertainment, it's also great entertainment for everyone. It's a very popular movie center, a great percentage of the movie, theater tickets sold in Manhattan are in the Time Square area. So it gets a full range of, of the kinds of people that live in New York. I don't think that the way...

Robert Lipsyte:
Well, that may be true of Time Square, but not a 42nd Street. I worked there in that area for 15 years and when I was in college, of course, I went to bad western movies there. So I mean, it has always been a dangerous block- a block of cheap movies, of cheap food, it does have a very specific ambience. And I'm wondering about changing it part of the way. You really feel it has to be changed entirely.

Carl Weisbrod:
Well, I think there's a distinction and I- Paul was getting added a little bit and I would just like to expand on it- between Times Square and what starts at the so called "crossroads of the world" on Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street and then moves up Times Square to 47th Street, and 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenue. They are linked, to be sure, but they are two quite different cultures and quite different worlds. 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenue is simply the worst block in the city and has to be totally-

Robert Lipsyte:
But it's also the anchor for Times Square.

Carl Weisbrod:
No it's not the anchor

Robert Lipsyte 07:32
That culture, It moves in and out of 42nd Street.

Carl Weisbrod
It does- that culture moves in and out of 42nd street, but the anchor on 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue and Broadway the "crossroads" is the anchor and is the linchpin between 42nd between seventh and eighth, which is awful, and I believe has to be totally transformed. And which we are in the process of transforming from what is there now, which is a concentration of sex related businesses, fast food restaurants, pinball arcades, hole in the wall grocery stores that sell nothing but beer, condoms and knives, basically-

Robert Lipsyte:
Where all those stores and people are going to go?

Carl Weisbrod:
Well, I think that many of them will go out of business because they're marginal, now existing on this main thoroughfare, which is only between the seventh and eighth Avenue subway station. One of the reasons 42nd Street is so intractable is because of where it's located. There hasn't been a new development on this block, by the way, for 60 years, that's extraordinary for Manhattan block. And a lot of these businesses will simply go out of business, the rest of them will try to relocate in the Time Square area because this is where their market is. But in isolation, these businesses are not the same kind of problem, the same kind of threat, do not create the same environment that they do now on 42nd Street and concentration. I think the issue is of Time Square from 42nd Street, up to 47th Street, the face of Times Square, present a different set of issues and and I think we all agree that we would like to see the historical ambience of Times Square- the excitement, the meeting place notion, the entertainment center, which also will be created between seventh and eighth.

Robert Lipsyte 09:09
That of course will be changed by these four towers and the 1000s upon 1000s of people that will be flooding the area in the daytime. And then much like Wall Street, moving out again at night. Well,

Paul Segal:
The idea of a mixed use neighborhood I don't think is a poor idea at all. I think that this is just being overdone. I think that the sense of balance will be lost. I think that what is proposed for that block, which is going to substantially change it, should be done. I don't think that you need to pay the price of this kind of overdevelopment at the "crossroad" site to achieve that. The price is pretty minial.

Robert Lipsyte:
By the power vested in me by the 11th hour, I'm giving you the plans and you can have the second draft on them- would you do?

Paul Segal:
What I do instead, right, I would try to use those sites as development sites for uses related to that area. I think it's wrong Specifically? Okay. First of all, I wouldn't put so much density there. I think that the neighborhood already suffers from too many people, too much of the day. I think much lower density would be appropriate. Second of all, I wouldn't try to develop it as corporate offices for major law firms for other uses that belong more appropriately on Park Avenue. I would try to develop it for uses that are more compatible with the entertainment industry, with the businesses that are in the entertainment industry, or in related industries, so that they won't try and need to make their buildings look very out of place in Times Square.

Robert Lipsyte :
Be specific. As long as you keep the the cheap movies that I can do. Paul, Carl, don't, don't go away. When we come back, we'll be joined by Brendan Gill of The New Yorker, a fierce defender of the present Times Square. But first, there's an old Time Square saying, "there's a broken heart for every light on Broadway." Well, I don't know much about the hearts, but we can show you something about the lights.

Willensky on a corner in Times Square, Nathan's, peds, and traffic in bkgd, speaks with unseen unknown interviewer. He talks about Times Square being a "playground" a great city.

Iconic vintage Camels Cigarettes billboard, the face of a WWII soldier - wafting giant smoke rings over Times Square, vintage cars on street driving by.
(circa 1940's).

Cutaway to historic footage of Times Square at night, the Fox-Savoy Theatre marquis, two men on street corner with sandwich boards advertising Haircuts and Chess/Checkers in the Bridge Room.

Giant vintage animated Kleenex neon sign on building - night time - Soft! Strong! Pops Up! Tissues - Kleenex your Best Buy in tissues. Sign covers both sides of building.

Exterior Artkraft Strauss Sign Co., unknown red walking by. Huge display of neon lights out front.

Interior Artkraft Strauss Sign Co. workers making neon glass

A view of New York Times Square with Sony, CocaCola, Batman, Regal Whisky billboards and high rises in bkgd, Tama Starr, talking with unseen unknown interviewer about the history of the Artkraft Strauss Sign Company about the beginnings and uses of Neon to decorate buildings and ceilings of nightclubs during the Art Deco era. Starr talks about her grandfather, Jake, being the first to see the application of neon to outdoor advertising.

Historical b&w footage New - Loew's New York Theatre marquis illegible, street scenes, storefront "Waffles" sign on building as vintage truck rolls by.

Lipsyte narrates over historic b&w montage of clips - peds walking by a large neon "S" sitting on its side on the street, two men moving a large neon sign (obscured) or theatre marquis.

Flashing Neon MGM billboard reads: Quo Vadis
Robert Lipsyte narrates: -
Arthor Benline worked for Loew's in the Squares heyday, building at sumptuous movie palaces. When he needed another fabulous marquee for his theater, he turned to Artkraft Strauss.
.

B&W photo still of The Ziegfeld Follies chorus girls

B&W vintage photo still to the Deparession era song "Brother ,Can you Spare a Dime?"- a young man holding a crate of apples on his shoulder and a sign that reads "unemployed Buy Apples 5 cents each, man standing next to him with a notepad and pen in hand.

Close up shot Times Square 1930's much traffic, vintage cars, marquis on theater reads "Tonight Our Gang Contest" crowd of people can be seen

Pan up on Liberty Theatre - sign reads "Liberty" 10 cents, 15 cents, partially obscured details

Montage of the large flashing neon displays for the first run movies on Times Square in the 1940's: "Joan of Arc" starring Ingrid Bergman; Charles Chaplin in "Monsieur Verdoux"; "Carnegie Hall" "the Greater Music Picture of all Time".

B&W photo stills Times Square packed with people at the end of WWII celebrating Americans beat the Japs! , holding up sign "WAR ENDS". close up three women smiling happy

Iconic B&W photos of sailor kissing girl on Times Square - Marie Lampart narrates as photos are shown that the sailor was proposing to the girl - he had promised his parents in Boise Idaho he would come home with a wife!

Montage of the many various neon flashing signs, billboards and marquis on Times Square and Broadway in the 1960's - Coca Cola on the Jumbotron, Glycolic TWA, Canadian Club, Marquis "Love Hunger, Rent a Girl" - as Host Robert Lipsyte narrates about the hard times during the energy crisis at the time.

Cut back to Elliot Willensky standing on corner of Times Square.
Insert:

As Times Square revealed New York, in the 20s, and the 30s, and the 40s, and the 50s, I think Times Square may very well reveal New York today.

INSERT INTERVIEW:
Robert Lipsyte:
Joining us now Brendan Gill, author, writer of the New Yorker Skyline Department, a founder of the Committee to Reclaim Time Square. Welcome. I have to tell you right off that I've always found 42nd Street in particular a venal Disneyland, kind of like Time Square? How would you change it? How would you reclaim it?

Brendan Gill:
The venal Disneyland the venal Disneyland would be one, the opposite of what it really is now. Times Square is supposed to measurably honkytonk. Nobody pretends to Times Square ought to be what the block of 42nd Street is between seventh and eighth avenue. However, I think always from the beginning, it's been disingenuous to suppose that the situation there which is endemic throughout the entire world with crack, teenage male prostitution, and all those things, is curable by architecture. And so I feel strongly that that the building of gigantic enterprise of this kind, this 13 acre monstrous thing, of office buildings, is exactly wrong. And no time in history has the venality that you speak of has been corrected simply by architecture. So I would go along with what Paul Segal has said that there must be reclaiming of Time Square, in a good sense with appropriate activities that are related to all the activities that have always existed for 50 or 80 years in Times Square. Carl has tried to separate the 42nd street gang from Times Square, but I agree with you that it is it is the base of the anch, it is the anchor, it is the beginning of the whole thing, and it can be altered without being utterly transformed. And it isn't just the question.

Robert Lipsyte:
You think that the crime problem can be solved without putting four towers?

Brendan Gill (NT-3196) 17:59
No, what I would rather say is it can't be solved by architecture it has to be it is a sociological problem that happens to be exist not only here, but in Moscow and in Beijing and everywhere else on earth at the present moment.

Robert Lipsyte:
So you're not offering us a solution to 42nd street.

Brendan Gill:
And there was something worse than the absence of a solution, which is that the situation is going to stay but it's going to be dissipated into different directions. But the real likelihood is that it will move over into Clinton, which is now an attractive area of brownstones and restaurants and so on. And then everybody in that area will presumably be subject to the same threat of losing their

Robert Lipsyte:
Carl, why not just leave 42nd Street alone, kids will put signs up at either end and say go in here and at your own risk.

Carl Weisbrod:
Well, we've tried that in this country, and it's been unsuccessful. We tried it with the Boston Combat Zone, which was not nearly as depraved or difficult to street is 42nd street. Yeah, I would just disagree with Brendan to say that while drugs and prostitution and crime certainly do exist all over this world. I don't think there's a block in the world that I've ever been on that is anything approaching 42nd Street between seventh and eighth avenue first.

Brendan Gill:
You haven't been to Naples, perhaps.

Robert Lipsyte:
Or Bangkok.

Carl Weisbrod:
Second, second, this the gateway to New York City. This is this is the one of this major entrance to New York City.

Robert Lipsyte:
Do you feel that a parade of innocence goes through 42nd Street and are attacked without knowing that this is a block that one should stay away from?

Carl Weisbrod :
Many times ,many times ,and attacked in funny ways that don't even show up in the crime statistics. A tourist who is going to the port to the bus terminal or down to the Circle Line on 42nd Street and the Hudson River will walk down the street and be verbally assaulted- that won't show is a crime statistic. And it isn't a crime. But it's a verbal assault that will that will make that person think twice before coming back to New York City. Or especially if they're not prepared for it and don't have the defenses New Yorkers have. Second, just to give you a sense of how off putting this block is to certain people, 86% of the people who will walk on the street, and sometimes there are 9,000 an hour, are males. Only 16% of women, This is a block that is, in essence, off limits to women. That's unacceptable, I think in the city.

Brendan Gill:
What what I was going to say that I would feel that anybody watching this program would think, that we were very innocent people indeed, if we suppose that we are all talking here about trying to help New York City selflessly, and that this is the method of selfless improvement of the greatest city on Earth, which we now are. It is not that alone isn't the entire Times Square thing. And in particular, the 42nd Street thing is an attempt to make a tiny handful of very rich real estate developers still richer and a number of tools

Robert Lipsyte:
Don't you think this is symptomatic of the entire city of Manhattan?

Brendan Gill:
Of course, of course!

Robert Lipsyte :
Of taking the great towers being thrown up without referendum?

Brendan Gill:
I think you've already lost the war for the theater district, the theater district has been given away to a tiny handful of real estate developers. The theater district is dead! Now we're fighting this little battle in the war on 42nd Street! But the intention is not simply to make this a greater city, it is an intention to make a certain number of people extremely rich indeed.

INTERVIEW INSERT CONTINUES:
Brendan Gill:
And they haven't got your project in hand. yet. It still is not the whole project that they said they had seven years ago. They still have nobody building on Eighth Avenue crossing the bus terminal, either on the east side, southeast side or the or the Northeast.
Robert Lipsyte :
Do you think the governor cares about New York?
Brendan Gill (NT-3196) 26:24
No. And I don't then I think, governor I mean, Ed Koch, I think cares about giving it away. So we got to people that don't give a damn. I really think that's it.
Paul Segal:
Don't you think that ultimately it's it's easy to blame it on the politicians or the developers. I think ultimately the citizens, who are the ones who are losing the most, are the ones who haven't stood up politically.
Robert Lipsyte :
Which citizens in particular, Paul?
Paul Segal:
Everybody! The seven million people that live here, Robert Lipsyte :
He stood up! Carl.
Paul Segal:
That leaves the door about 6 million short. There are a lot of people to whom this is gonna, I believe, and I agree with Brendon have a negative impact. And they haven't become educated on the topic and they're not aware of what happens in this sector.
Robert Lipsyte:
We're educated now. Paul Segal, Carl Weisbrod. Brendon Gill, thank you so very much for being with us.

Show credits over The Eleventh Hour graphic

Reel end.