Inventing Times Square

William Taylor has taught at Harvard University, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Chicago, and the State University of New York-Stony Brook. A fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities, he is the author of In Pursuit of Gotham and Cavalier and Yankee.

A portrait of pre-World War II America in good-natured upheaval, shaking off convention and inventing and reinventing an unpredictable 'commercial culture.'. New York Times This is a rather astonishing effort-the collective brainpower focused on the subject fairly guarantees that every little corner of the square's history will be illuminated for the reader. Los Angeles Times The range of topics is enormous, from the strategies of city planners and real estate entrepreneurs to the tactics of cultural resistance employed by homosexuals and by retailers of commercial popular culture. Journal of American History

• AcknowledgmentsPhotographsIntroductionProloguePart I: Structural ChangesIntroductory EssayChapter 1. Developing for Commercial CultureChapter 2. Uptown Real Estate and the Creation of Times SquareChapter 3. Urban Tourism and the Commercial CityChapter 4. The Discipline of AmusementChapter 5. Brokers and the New Corporate, Industrial OrderPart II: Entertainment and CommerceIntroductory EssayChapter 6. Vaudeville and the Transformation of Popular CultureChapter 7. The Syndicate/Shubert WarChapter 8. Impresarios of Broadway NightlifeChapter 9. The Entertainment District at the End of the 1930sChapter 10. Irving Berlin: Troubadour of Tin Pan AlleyChapter 11. Broadway: The Place that Words BuiltPart III: Commercial AestheticsIntroductory EssayChapter 12. New York's Gigantic ToyChapter 13. Joseph UrbanPart IV: Boundaries of RespectabilityIntroductory EssayChapter 14. Policing of SexualityChapter 15. The Policed: Gay Men's Strategies of Everyday ResistanceChapter 16. Private Parts in Public PlacesAfterwordNotesContributorsIndex