Money Jungle: Imagining the New Times Square
"Alternately Herculean and Sisyphean, the struggle to clean up  Times Square has never been chronicled with more thoroughness or insight,  nor with greater sensitivity to the ramifications of the attempt." --Charles Ardai, founder and editor of Hard Case Crime"Money Jungle is a compelling ethnography that takes the reader on  a layered and vivid tour of the people and forces that produce urban  change. With his imaginative and multifaceted approach to an iconic site,  Chesluk makes a strong contribution to anthropology, sociology, and  cultural studies." --Lorna A. Rhodes, author of Total Confinement: Madness and Reason  in the Maximum Security Prison"The strength of this book lies in Chesluk's ability to ground his  ethnographic inquiries with a historically informed sensibility of the  cultural career of redevelopment efforts in Times Square. Unique and  innovative, Money Jungle represents an important contribution to urban  anthropology and to the studies of cities generally." --John Hartigan Jr., Department of Anthropology, University of Texas"With a keen ear and eye for the lessons of the street and those  in more scholarly nooks, Benjamin Chesluk explores the ongoing evolution of  Times Square, that fascinating cultural petrie dish where so much of the  savory and sour aspects of American life have been nurtured and displayed.  Chesluk shows that no one force accounts for Times Square's current  transformation from seedy pit to family paradise, but that dollars and  their owners have always been instrumental in painting new pictures on this  highly visible canvas of American life." --Alex Marshall, author of Beneath the Metropolis: The Secret Lives  of Cities