Money Jungle: Imagining the New Times Square

Benjamin Chesluk

Published by Rutgers University Press 2008

Money Jungle

Imagining the New Times Square

Benjamin Chesluk
Photographs by: Maggie Hopp

https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813543819

Overview
Contents

About this book

For more than a century, Times Square has mesmerized the world with the spectacle of its dazzling supersigns, its theaters, and its often-seedy nightlife. New York City’s iconic crossroads has drawn crowds of revelers, thrill-seekers, and other urban denizens, not to mention lavish outpourings of advertising and development money.

Many have hotly debated the recent transformation of this legendary intersection, with voices typically falling into two opposing camps. Some applaud a blighted red-light district becoming a big-budget, mainstream destination. Others lament an urban zone of lawless possibility being replaced by a Disneyfied, theme-park version of New York. In Money Jungle, Benjamin Chesluk shows that what is really at stake in Times Square are fundamental questions about city life—questions of power, pleasure, and what it means to be a citizen in contemporary urban space.

Chesluk weaves together surprising stories of everyday life in and around the Times Square redevelopment, tracing the connections between people from every level of this grand project in social and spatial engineering: the developers, architects, and designers responsible for reshaping the urban public spaces of Times Square and Forty-second Street; the experimental Midtown Community Court and its Times Square Ink. job-training program for misdemeanor criminals; encounters between NYPD officers and residents of Hell’s Kitchen; and angry confrontations between city planners and neighborhood activists over the future of the area.

With an eye for offbeat, telling details and a perspective that is at once sympathetic and critical, Chesluk documents how the redevelopment has tried, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, to reshape the people and places of Times Square. The result is a colorful and engaging portrait, illustrated by stunning photographs by long-time local photographer Maggie Hopp, of the street life, politics, economics, and cultural forces that mold America’s urban centers.

Author / Editor information

Benjamin Chesluk holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of California at Santa Cruz. He lives in Philadelphia.

Reviews

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

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

The strength of this book lies in CheslukÆs 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

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

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vi
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
About the Photographs Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
CHAPTER ONE. Brilliant Corners: The Redevelopment of Times Square Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
CHAPTER TWO. Magnificent Spectacle: Real Estate, Theater, Advertising, and the History of Times Square Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
CHAPTER THREE. The New Spaces of Times Square: Commerce, Social Control, and the Built Environment Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	48
CHAPTER FOUR. The Midtown Community Court: Intimacy and Power in an Experimental Courtroom Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
CHAPTER FIVE. Times Square Ink.: Redevelopment of the Self Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	96
CHAPTER SIX. “Visible Signs of a City Out of Control”: Images of Order and Disorder in Police-Community Dialogue Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	134
CHAPTER SEVEN. “It Doesn’t Exist, But They’re Selling It”: The Debates over “Air Rights” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
CHAPTER EIGHT. Conclusion: The Meanings of Times Square Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	188
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	197
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	217
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231

Language: English
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 248
Illustrations
- Other: 16

eBook

Published: September 11, 2007
ISBN: 9780813543819