Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 3, 1994 TAG: 9402030183
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
The Walt Disney Co. is coming to 42nd Street to restore a decayed theater and bring live family entertainment back to a precinct of pornography.
At a crowded City Hall news conference Wednesday, Gov. Mario Cuomo and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani hailed the agreement as a jump start for the struggling 42nd Street revitalization project.
Eventually, the real "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" may be seen on the titillating thoroughfare, as Mickey and Minnie and their gang elbow out the Buxom Berthas and Sizzling Susies.
Disney will put up $8 million and borrow $21 million more, at 3 percent interest, from the city and state, to reopen the New Amsterdam Theater for productions adapted from favorite Disney features and original stage productions.
"Often, where we go, people will follow," said Michael Eisner, Disney's chairman. "We'll see 42nd Street becoming the Great White Way that it was."
"This was a sewer, and everybody knew it, right in the heart of New York City," Cuomo said. "Now 42nd Street's going to be back. You're going to get rid of the filth and bring back the old values. People are going to bring their kids, imagine!"
Vincent Tese, Cuomo's economic development director, said the deal, which was half a year in the making, will create 490 jobs worth $16.9 million during the two-year restoration phase.
"Then when the theater reopens, there will be 385 jobs and a direct impact of $53.1 million a year, not counting shopping and dining that will be generated," Tese said.
New York City will realize $4.1 million a year in tax revenue, he said.
But will the street be safe?
"Absolutely," Giuliani said.
The recession and softening of real estate sank a grandiose redevelopment planned in the 1980s around giant office towers that were never built.
But under a revised plan for mixed entertainment and retail use, a cleanup already has begun.
"By the time this place opens, it will be a jewel in a necklace that's already formed," Cuomo said.
The New Amsterdam and several other theaters on the street just west of Broadway once staged opulent musical revues and plays. About the time of World War II, they became movie houses, finally surrounded by smut-peddling storefronts and menacing street life.
An art nouveau palace, the New Amsterdam opened in 1903 with a production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." It was the home of the Ziegfeld Follies from 1913 through 1927. Its last live presentation, in 1937, starred Walter Huston in "Othello."
by CNB