Urban planner Rebecca Robertson is a transplant from Toronto, a city far away from the bite of the Big Apple. They are creating the miracle of 42nd Street. The strip between Broadway and Eighth Avenue is still an asphalt jungle. Pickpockets and con artists have been replaced by hordes of ordinary people. And turf battles are between Disney and Warner stores.
Giant billboards camouflage construction's sidewalk sheds.
And dirt is generated by dozers and dump trucks, not pimps and prostitutes. It's a changed scene. With only one site unaccounted for, the business establishment sees a street paved with gold. A new Times Square subway station, and interim stores and eateries are keeping the street lively while construction proceeds at several sites. The curtain came up on the New Victory children's theater in December 1995.