Times Square, on the other hand, has been a red-light district since the Depression era, when Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia fought to shut down a small empire of burlesque houses run by Bill Minsky. There is little pretense that the new rules are aimed at preserving a cozy residential neighborhood in Times Square. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who has long promoted the porn restrictions, is eager to make parts of New York City more attractive to major businesses, whether by shutting down street vendors and flea markets, intervening in neighborhood disputes over the opening of big chain stores, or seizing control of mob-influenced truck unloading operations at the Fulton Fish Market. The porn re-zoning puts Giuliani squarely on the side of big investors such as Disney, which has already renovated the large New Amsterdam Theater near Times Square, and against another industry with mob ties and an unwholesome reputation. Al Goldstein, editor of Screw magazine, sees the new regulations as yet another assault in the war against sexual expression.
Politicians run the city, and they're whores.
They give real prostitutes a bad name. Goldstein doesn't expect anything momentous to happen as a result of the ongoing court battles over the new rules. Instead, he sees the dispute as a footnote to an age-old social struggle. But New York politics is rarely as simple as free speech vs. prudery. The city routinely uses land-use regulations to favor certain interests over others, and many quieter zoning battles go largely unnoticed.