Ruby Would Keel Over

Have you seen Forty Second Street lately? Not the musical, the street. It’s gone from sleazy to grotesque without passing through entertaining. A feat, heretofore, limited to reality television. How did this happen?

I don’t mean the United Nations/Ford Foundation end of East Forty Second Street. Go west, young man, and don’t stop at Bryant Park. I’m talking about the block between Seventh and Eighth Avenue. For years, it was a rank place with ranks of identical theaters playing what were, in all likelihood, identical pornographic films. A gloomy street that lighted marquees did nothing to illuminate. It’s only virtue being that it was easy to avoid. Now, it’s crammed cheek to bung with brightly colored, garishly lit structures, blown up to inhuman proportions. True, the street doesn’t resemble its old self. It also doesn’t resemble anything outside of a German Expressionist film. I’m not sentimental about the old Forty Second Street, but I do look askance at its current incarnation.

The theaters, predictably, have fallen on hard times. A very large one is boarded up, another has been turned into a MacDonald’s and a third suffers the misfortune of being named the American Airlines Theater. Who thinks that company is so profitable and well-run that they can afford this kind of vanity (or corporate generosity?) Especially in this economy? Anyone? A theater that used to show, “Horrors of the Wax Museum” is now, horrors, a wax museum. Welcome to New York, Madame Tussaud’s. Another example of going full circle is the new Cinema Multiplex on this block. Inside are ranks of identical theaters, showing what are, trust me, nearly identical movies.

What this street needs is a touch of hospitality. Unfortunately, the entrance to the Hilton Times Square is so small that you can barely see it between the moneychanger on one side and that temple among chain restaurants, Applebee’s, on the other. A touch of culture wouldn’t hurt, either. Fortunately, there’s a museum only doors away from the Hilton. Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum. Okay, it’s a freak show and not as dignified as, say, The Museum of Natural History. Compared to the rest of the block, though, it’s an island of serenity.

It’s not just the buildings and businesses that disturb me. The people who visit Forty Second Street are no prize, either. In the old days, men would lurk in the shadows, which was fine because no wanted to look at them. Ratzo Rizzo earned his name. He and his brothers used to skitter about like rodents avoiding the light. Now, you have tourists and they’re shameless. They don’t even try to hide. Like the buildings, they are brightly colored and blown up to inhuman proportions. And they wear shorts.

What can explain this state of affairs? How did this poem of visual illiteracy get composed in the first place? I blame Las Vegas. That desert oasis was first to try and change it’s image from “Sin City” to a place for wholesome entertainment – to trade the “Rat Pack” for the fanny pack. They attempted this through a number of means. First, a series of family-friendly spectacles like exploding volcanoes and simulated pirate attacks. Then they filled a gallery with some of the world’s greatest paintings (not their most popular attraction.) Finally, they constructed a series of hotels designed to look like world capitals: Paris, Venice, Cairo and New York are all, today, within flooding distance of Hoover Dam. These hotels are built on the scale of Hoover Dam, too. Thus, families can experience city life without the inconvenience of real life. Why, when we live on an island bereft of volcanoes and chronically short of pirate attacks, someone brought this idea back to Manhattan is beyond me. It’s like translating from English into French and then back to English. The result is a garbled mess. You have policemen advising suspects of their right to see an avocado. (As for Las Vegas currently trying to revert back to its old, rakish image, that can only be explained as form of mid-life crisis.)

You may be forgiven for thinking that I feel superior to this stretch of Forty Second Street and the people who congregate there. I’ll admit it’s tempting, but also that it’s impossible. Too many of those people have seen me walking down the same street, wearing a funny t-shirt, gawking at everything and muttering to myself. I happen to be saying, “It’s gone from sleazy to grotesque without passing through entertaining,” but I could just as easily be saying, “Wow, look at the tall buildings” or in a less friendly mode, “Some day a rain’s gonna come . . .”

As Ruby Keeler would sing today, “Not naughty, not bawdy, not sporty, but gaudy Forty Second Street!”