Times Square is a lot of different things. It is a historic part of
Manhattan. It’s iconic when it comes to New Year’s Eve not to mention Broadway.
It’s an area that a lot of New York natives try to avoid. It’s also,
without a shadow of a doubt, an area that had gone through a dramatic transformation in the 1990s.
It’s one that many called Disneyfication. It went from a seedy pocket of adult theaters and clubs
and shops to the M&M store, Bubba Gump Shrimp, and Wax Museums. That term, Disneyfication,
not only signaled the cleaning up of 42nd Street but on a more literal level was indicative of a
time where The Walt Disney Company was heavily invested in its revitalization.
That includes almost building a 47-story tall Disney hotel in the heart of Times Square.
In the late 80s/early 90s the city saw a resource in Times Square. The thinking was that
if more people were more enticed to visit Times Square, it would mean more spending in the city,
more tax revenue, and more jobs. The Times Square Revitalization effort estimated that transforming
42nd street alone would result in 20,000 news jobs and up to $320 million a year in taxes.
In order to clean up Times Square and turn it into the tourist destination they wanted,
the city would have to make drastic changes in a short window of time.
Step one involved pushing out all of the adult shops and clubs in the area.
A planned zoning resolution would strictly limit where adult businesses in the city could operate,
and that included flat-out banning them from certain districts, such as District C6-7,
which was 42nd street. Adult businesses within the new zones would have one year to move before
being shut down. Opponents to the change called it heavy-handed and forced morality, and argued
that it would alter the character of the city. After all, Times Square’s reputation of being
kind of seedy was one that dated back to its early days. The city countered that those shops weren’t
adding much character, or at least not the kind of character they wanted New York to be known for.
At the same time, it was all sort of a game of chicken. Brands and companies that the city did
want New York to be known for only wanted to get involved so long as other big brands and
companies were attached to it. So it was in the city’s best interest to land a real big
fish for this revitalization effort. One that would draw in countless other participants.
And what better fish when it came to family-friendly tourism than Disney?
According to Disney War by James Stewart, Disney CEO Michael Eisner was initially resistant to the
idea of getting involved with Times Square. After all, the place had a reputation that was about as
un-Disney-like as you could get. However, after a private tour of the New Amersterdam Theater
with architect and friend, Robert Stern, he had a change of heart. Restoring this classic piece
of New York history on 42nd street could be the kind of move that would set him apart from
other bland corporate CEOs. He would become a patron of the arts in a pretty significant way.
It also helped that Eisner was a native New Yorker who had grown up seeing shows on Broadway
and even majored in English to be a playwright.
So with a change of heart in February of 1994, Disney and city officials announced plans for the
company to purchase and renovate the New Amsterdam Theater. Disney would be paying $8 million out of
their own pocket, and the remaining $26 million would come from low-interest loans from the state.
The deal itself wouldn’t be locked in until July the following year, but the intention
alone was enough to get other larger companies to consider buying into the revitalization effort.
As Gretchen Dykstra, President of the Times Square Business Improvement District put it,
“Once Disney came, it was a whole new ballgame.” Businesses like AMC Theaters and amusements like
Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum threw their hat into the ring. Another company that
was looking to buy into Times Square thanks to Disney was… well… it was actually Disney again.
In early 1995 the city was looking to choose a company to develop the Northeastern corner of
42nd street and 8th Ave. It would be a combination of retail space along with a hotel. Disney had
partnered with Tishman Urban Development and Miami-based Arquitectonica to submit their
proposal. Disney already had a history working with Tishman on EPCOT as well as the Swan and
Dolphin hotels. They had also been working with Arquitectonica, who had just done the first two
All-Star resorts and was working on their Port Canaveral terminal for the Disney Cruise Line.
Their combined pitch was to develop and build a $300 million hotel and entertainment complex.
The 47-story hotel would offer 680 rooms, 100 of which would be sold as Disney DVC properties.
Disney’s timeshare business was only a few years old at this point,
but it was already doing well enough that they were looking to expand it beyond Disney World.
As for the entertainment complex, it would be over 190,000 square
feet and early considerations for the venues within included ESPN, Sony IMAX, and Sega.
While multiple companies submitted concepts, including Marriott, the city went with Disney.
Some would speculate that the city accepted Disney’s proposal out of fear and that if they
hadn’t, Disney would pull out of the New Amsterdam Theater purchase, since that still wasn’t set in
stone. Aside from the radical shift in the area’s reputation, the city estimated that the hotel and
complex would create 3,000 construction jobs and 1,300 permanent jobs once it was finished,
not to mention $56 million in taxes over the following 20 years. More importantly,
it strengthened Disney’s commitment to the area and, in turn, the city’s ability to sell
the revitalization to other companies. Look! Disney isn’t just doing the theater thing,
they’re doing this hotel and entertainment complex too! Oh, and retail. Did we mention the retail?
That’s right. On top of the two projects, Disney was also in talks to lease retail space on 42nd
and 7th Ave for a Disney Store. Eight years prior the company had ventured into the world of retail,
and by that point, there were over 125 Disney Stores across the nation.
Then out of nowhere in 1996, the same year they were originally planned to break ground on the
hotel, Disney announced that they were backing out of the plan. They offered no public reason beyond
wanting to put the idea of an urban timeshare on the backburner. Instead, their focus would be on
other beach-style properties such as Vero Beach and Hilton Head Island. However, around that same
time, it was reported that Tishman was struggling to find financing for the $300 million project,
so it’s possible that played a part in the decision as well.
Rumors circulated for a while that they were going to get involved in a 380,000 square foot
entertainment complex across the street that was going to be shared with the retailer HMV.
One source even claimed that there was some sort of indoor amusement park in the works, but
nothing really ever came of it.
Disney did end up investing quite a bit of attention and money into New York City, however.
They ultimately did buy and restore the New Amsterdam Theater which is still around today
and has been home to numerous Disney musicals. Just next door they’d open a Disney Store. They
also held all sorts of events in the city at that time, including a massive
outdoor premiere of the film Pocahontas in Central Park, and a modified version of the Main Street
Electrical Parade that ran in Manhattan to promote Hercules. As for the hotel project, Tishman ended
up getting the hotel built anyway, and it exists today as a Westin that they still own.
It even looks pretty much the same as it would have with Disney just minus the pixie dust.
The Disneyfication of Times Square is undeniable. It not only represents the moral 180 that the
area took when it went from “The Duece” to “the best spot to find a third rate Winnie the Pooh”,
but it also represents a time where one company moved in
and set down roots in a city that they’re still present in to this day.
But beyond those two, it also describes the very effect that the company had on Times Square.
They never went through with the hotel, but just by planning on it for a year, the city was able to
bring in other big names to help transform the area. Not many companies wielded that
kind of power, but Disney did. Now, whether that Disneyfication was good or bad for Times Square,
that’s a question for another video and a whole lot of opinionated New Yorkers.