Reviews for The Devil's Playground: A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square

The average rating for The Devil's Playground: A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-03-20 00:00:00 Corey Slyford I read this as research for a historical fiction contest I hoped to enter, but I didn't get very far before I realized that I wasn't going to finish the book, much less my story, before the deadline. That put a real damper on my enthusiasm for the book, but I regained it in the second half. As has happened before with books that cover a broad swath of history, the closer the book got to my lifetime, the more I appreciated it. The book is about the history of Times Square and 42nd Street, which were marketed as separate entities when 42nd Street turned into New York City's center for porn, peep shows, and prostitution. The book begins with the birth of Broadway as a theatre district, but even in its golden age, Broadway always had elements just skirting the edge of conventional morality. Ziegfeld's Follies were the first to push the envelope, and the heart of "legitimate" theatre remained Greenwich Village for a long time. It took a while for a Eugene O'Neil play to be produced on Broadway, but when it was, it was a sign that Broadway was no longer just for low and middle-brow musical extravaganzas. The decline of theatre began in the 1950's with the advent of television. Why pay Broadway prices when you could be entertained at home for free? The peep shows filled the commercial gap of that empty real estate, which attracted the lowest elements of society. The Beat poets loved hanging out there precisely for that reason. To those expatriates of suburbia, the seamer side of life was the only authenticity. The Beatnik connection was complete news to me; I always thought they preferred the Village. With the urban decline of the 1970's, the porn district of 42nd Street was so out of control, it might even have shocked the Beatniks. I grew up in New York in the 70's and 80's, and I remember knowing as a teenager that West 42nd Street was a place to be avoided. In my college years, I couldn't avoid Port Authority because I'd travel to and from school over there, and so I got to see 42nd Street for myself. It was as disgusting as I'd always been told. I'd also been warned that pimps prey upon young naïve women at Port Authority. Nothing like that ever happened to me, but I did prove my naiveté by getting conned out of my last few dollars over there one time. And then came the cleanup, though plans for it were under way for decades. Mayor Koch rejected the Disneyfication plan, saying New York would lose too much of its unique character. But Mayor Giuliani embraced the plan, legislating that porn shops could only operate at a certain distance from one another, which ended the concentration that made the neighborhood so distasteful. Now the Disneyfication of Times Square is complete. The Beatniks would probably vomit at what it looks like now, but as far as this New Yorker is concerned, it's a much safer place to stand outside waiting for a bus. If you like theatre history, you might like this book. Ditto if you have any interest in the development of New York. The research is thorough and the writing is mostly engaging, though some chapters bored me. Donald Trump gets three mentions in the book: once in comparison to a media hound of early Broadway, once for gaudy architecture, and once as a statue at Madame Tussaud's. The book was published in 2004; the author, as well of the rest of us, never could have dreamed that he would ever become president. As for my own attempt at historical fiction, I think I might have done better with two of the books the author cited in his acknowledgements. Oh well. I certainly learned a lot.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-06-17 00:00:00 Ina Knapper More like 2.5 stars. The idea is fascinating: trace the history of Times Square from its humble beginnings to the giant corporate billboard that is today. I appreciated some of the earlier chapters but got bogged down with his writing style. The book just got boring the longer it went on. I did learn some useful information but think it should have been about 100 pages shorter.