Skidmore, Owings and
Merrill's schematic
drawings for the new
convention center, planned
for the edge of the Hudson
River near the terminus
of the 48th Street line.

THE TIMES TO
was begun in 1903 in
Completed in 1905, it
New York's second tal
as "the second Flatiron
both buildings being c
angle intersection with
outgrew the building i
The new owner had it
remodeled by the archi
designers, Cyrus L. W.

The bland effacement re-
Is its alteration really a

Current Zoning

ANNUAL REPORT 1997

The Times Square BID consists primarily of C6 zones, with C5 and M1 zones near the BID's southern boundary.

## C6 General Central Commercial Districts

These districts are zoned for a wide range of high bulk commercial uses. They permit and encourage uses such as corporate headquarters, hotels, entertainment facilities, retail stores, and some residential development in mixed buildings. Buildings within the C6 zones may range from 10 FAR to as high as 18 FAR with bonuses, and depending on configuration, may rise as much as 50 stories in height.

## C5 Restricted Central Commercial Districts

Districts designed to include office buildings, large retail stores, and related uses which occupy prime retail frontage in the central business district. Regulations also permit a few high-value custom manufacturing establishments.

## M1 Light Manufacturing District

This district includes multistory loft buildings, which house light industries such as those associated with the garment industry, printing, and wholesale services. These industrial uses must meet rigorous performance standards.

Source: New York City Zoning Resolution, Insight Associates

8 Times Square Business Improvement District/1997

ANNUAL REPORT 1997

Adult Use Rezoning

* From a high of 120 adult use establishments in the 1970s, the number decreased to 47 in April 1994, to 21 in July 1997—a 55% drop in 3 years

* New citywide zoning will prohibit adult use establishments within 500 feet of:

- a house of worship or school

- a residential zone

- another adult use establishment (as shown by the blue circle)

* Legislation to regulate adult uses was upheld in July 1997 at the Appellate level by a unanimous decision, and a freeze on further expansion and construction of adult use establishments in prohibited zones is in effect until a decision is rendered by the Court of Appeals

* If upheld, all adult use establishments currently in gray zones will have to close or conform to new regulations

Source: Times Square BID

30 Times Square Business Improvement District/1997

A Times Square Special Zoning District has been designed to give more direction to the physical form of the area that is covered by the original Theater District legislation. This zoning district utilizes principles described in Chapter 2.

25

# Transforming Theater Row

## An Unlikely Urban Drama Heads for a Happy Ending

By RALPH BLUMENTHAL

42nd Street Development Corporation

Burlesque houses and pornography shops in 1976, above, before they gave way to the playhouses that now occupy Theater Row along two blocks of West 42nd Street.

Carrie Boretz

### Supercharging a Renewal

The biggest Off Broadway theater redevelopment project in New York City history has taken final form with the signing of contracts for six theaters and a 40-story apartment tower. These are its elements.

1. Theater, (new) 99 seats

2. Theater, (new) 199 seats

3. Theater, (new) 99 seats

4. Rehearsal studios

5. Samuel Beckett Theater, (rebuilt) 99 seats

6. Harold Clurman Theater, (rebuilt) 83 seats

7. Chez Josephine

8. Playrights Horizons, main stage 141 seats, studio theater 72 seats

9. Shubert/Sprecher Theater, (new) 499 seats

10. Restaurant (new)

Some of the prostitutes had Actors' Equity cards. That, at least, was a point of connection for the theater people and other dreamers who 25 years ago thought they could reclaim perhaps the seediest sex strip on wild West 42nd Street.

There was another link to culture. The International Body Rub Institute, the French Palace and other massage parlors that lined the block between 9th and 10th Avenues were decorated with murals: nudes, many painted by a quixotic Israeli artist who waited on tables down the block at the Hello Deli.

"It was like the Bloomsbury Group goes porn," recalled André Bishop, artistic director of the Lincoln Center Theater and one of the founders of Playwrights Horizons, a pioneer in the ultimately successful effort to turn the block into the flourishing Theater Row, which prefigured the far larger revival of 42nd Street and Times Square.

Now the eastern half of the enclave, between Ninth and Dyer Avenues, is poised for its own transformation. With the stroke of a pen — lots of strokes of lots of pens, actually — the biggest Off Broadway theater redevelopment project in New York City history has taken final form.

Contracts for a new 499-seat Shubert theater, five new or rebuilt smaller theaters and a 40-story apartment tower overlooking the Dyer Avenue exit from the Lincoln Tunnel were signed on April 14, supercharging a renewal that until now has been makeshift.

There was no self-congratulatory announcement but relief that the complex series of closings had survived. Partici-

*Continued on Page 5*

The New York Times