On New Year's Eve, thousands of revelers, tourists and scoundrels will once again gather in Times Square to watch the ball drop, and millions more will watch on TV. Why? The ball is but a bauble, the neighborhood a has-been. Its gaudy signs aside, the intersection of Broadway and 42d Street has long been an urban blank, sparsely populated by fast-food and electronics outlets and the last remaining peep shows.
No matter. Crowds pour into the former crossroads of the world anyway, and not just on New Year's. Even in a coma, Times Square remains an alluring international symbol of the racing, racy Gotham pulse; those of us who work there still catch a whiff of that adrenaline along with the other odors greeting us at the subway exit each morning.
If people hunger to come to New York's defunct field of neon dreams now, imagine the results were someone actually to build something there. The whole city could be refueled, economically and spiritually, by a reborn Times Square. You need only stroll to David Letterman's marquee 11 blocks north to see how even a single glamorous new tenant in a dark theater can transform a dead Broadway neighborhood into a mini-Times Square of its own.
Incredibly enough, given the interminable history of stalled plans, a new 42d Street is at this moment closer to reality than ever before. The wind changed, as expected, right after Disney's February announcement of its desire to resurrect the New Amsterdam, the glorious Ziegfeld palace. Construction began soon after on a nonprofit youth theater long promised for the Victory across the street. Now virtually every 42d Street parcel has become the subject of active negotiation.
According to Rebecca Robertson, president of the 42d Street Development Project, and some of the potential tenants, the bright lights include:
* Madame Tussaud's, now a leader in theme-park high tech as well as waxworks, plans to pack the old Times Tower with interactive, Manhattan-centric displays from Andy Warhol's Factory to the top of the Chrysler Building. Outside, the news zipper will not only remain lit but will circle a rehabilitated facade.
* Combining three dark theaters, MTV will create a complex that could do for the rock network what the RCA Building long ago did for NBC. John Cannelli, the MTV point man, pictures a studio for "unplugged" concerts, an unorthodox tour allowing visitors to snake through the network's production facilities, and a flamboyant restaurant that he promises will in no way resemble the Hard Rock Cafe.
* The distinctive architectural details in three other theaters will be preserved by American Multi-Cinema as it builds a multiplex of at least 24 screens, with diverse programming designed to draw the traditional Times Square audience mix.
* Four companies, Disney among them, are competing to create a flamboyant hotel across from the Port Authority Terminal.
All these plans, wildly urban-eclectic rather than homogeneously suburban-mall, uphold Times Square's indelible identity as a cacophonous, edgy center of night life. The neighborhood's very first theater, Oscar Hammerstein I's Olympia of 1895, was a multi-stage complex with a glass-bubbled roof garden; the first 42d Street sex businesses were documented as early as 1901. Times Square was never meant to be the Rockefeller Center promised by the austere Johnson-Burgee office towers of the previous development scheme.
What could go wrong now? The crucial final negotiations happen to coincide with the changeover in Governors. Any uncertainties could make one major tenant turn skittish, prompting others to flee, too.
But to keep 42d Street on track, George Pataki need do nothing -- literally so. The best way to preserve the momentum and continuity of the deal-making at this crucial pass is to retain the current state employees, led by Ms. Robertson, who have gotten so close, know the history and command the other players' trust.
Does the Governor-elect really care about New York City? We'll get an early clue if he makes sure that Times Square's dazzling new development balls stay in the air even as the old ball welcoming 1995 descends.
