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Broadway was singing a different showtune this week.
Luck be a lady… somewhere else!
Many of the theater’s powerful unions, landlords, trade organizations and ally businesses a-five-six-seven-hate Jay-Z, Caesars Entertainment and SL Green Realty’s bad, bad, bad bid to plop a casino in Times Square.
In the very same building that’s home to family-friendly “The Lion King,” 1515 Broadway, blackjack beckons.
One block away from “Hamilton,” drunk tourists losing all of their Benjamins.
Broadway feels such intense loathing toward Beyonce’s husband’s plan for Caesars Palace Times Square that, like the hippies of “Hair,” the pros staged a rally Thursday by the red steps ahead of Friday’s deadline for proposals.
They were practically singing “One Day More” out there.
“This casino’s developers don’t care about improving this neighborhood,” Broadway League prez Jean Valjean, I mean, Jason Laks said. “A casino in the heart of Times Square would only set this area back.”
Do you hear the people sing?
Eight bids are competing for three gambling licenses around the metro area — from near the UN (just what foreign dignitaries need!) all the way up to Yonkers.
Caesars’ is the splashiest.
I’m not much of a protester.
What do I want? A chair! When do I want it? Now!
But I sit in solidarity with Broadway. They’re dead right. The last thing the Crossroads of the World needs is poker tables, slot machines and the inevitable filth and riffraff that cling to them like saran wrap.
The theater industry’s chief beef, however, is a financial one.
“A casino can go anywhere,” Laks said. “Broadway can only be here.”
Show people insist that a shiny new gambling den would dangerously compete with their productions, which are only just getting back to some semblance of pre-pandemic normalcy.
This past Broadway season had the highest attendance levels since 2019.
A casino would rain on their parade.
Gaming establishments are designed to keep customers inside them so they can spend all their money on the premises — at proprietary hotels, bars, restaurants and entertainments.
Not at Joe Allen. Not at Hurley’s. Not at Un Deux Trois. Only at Caesars.
Once inside, the buildings tend to be labyrinthine and challenging to make your way out of.
Intentionally.
Those sneaks use psychological tricks such as dim lighting and windowless rooms to make you lose track of time.
In short, the people who run casinos don’t really want you to scurry off to see “Aladdin.”
Caesars says: Au contraire. Our business will be a boon to Broadway. We’ll buy up thousands of tickets.
That’s funny as “The Book of Mormon.” How does it benefit Caesars to send customers to a 2 ½-hour musical at 8 p.m.?
It doesn’t. That’s just lip service to get the heavyweight Broadway League and Shubert Organization onboard.
What of Las Vegas? They have shows, too, you say? Yes, Sin City does.
But it’s a different animal. You enter them from the casino floor. And they are nearly all 90 minutes long — purpose-built to get you back to the cards and chips ASAP.
Twenty Broadway musicals currently are more than two hours and have an intermission.
By the way, Broadway shows not called “Mamma Mia!,” almost always flop hard in Vegas.
So that’s one giant dilemma.
Here’s my issue. Times Square is already a Circus, Circus. The area has been especially disgusting and unruly since 2020, even if stronger policing has helped in recent months.
The city’s imbecilic moves over the years to turn much of it into a car-free pedestrian plaza has already provided ample opportunity for the homeless to sleep on the ground and drug dealers with a constant supply impaired loiterers.
So, let’s add gambling to that toxic mix.
Nobody with a brain really believes that a casino would improve Times Square.
Just like no one really believed that legalizing pot would be a consequence-free moneymaker for the state.
Our ethically challenged politicians go gaga for these terrible ideas because of the payoffs they get.
Meanwhile our neighborhoods and businesses suffer.
The only high rollers Times Square needs are investors who pour millions into risky Broadway shows.
Now, that’s one helluva gamble.
English (US)