WASHINGTON,DC-From her swank new luxury apartment in D.C.’s Navy Yard, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took another jab at her hometown, the Big Apple. This time, she’s not stopping tens of thousands of jobs for her constituents, she’s criticizing the corporate revitalization of Times Square.
“Fact that it’s in Times Sq tells you this isn’t for/by NYers,” Cortez said.
That may be so, but let’s rewind the clock and go back to Times Square before evil corporate interests invested billions of dollars into the heart of Manhattan and the city gave billions of dollars in tax credits to get it done. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than Times Square and 42nd Street of the 1980s and early 1990s. The entire area was chock full of homelessness, prostitution, drugs, peep shows, violence and strip clubs. It wasn’t a place you would want to bring your family and spend your hard earned money. It was a place to get whatever you wanted that you can’t get anywhere else in the world.
Don’t believe us Sandy? Even your favorite news network, CNN reported on this a couple of years ago in their piece “When Times Square was Sleazy“.
“In the 1980s, New York City’s Times Square wasn’t so much the “Crossroads of the World” as it was the wrong side of the tracks,” CNN Reported. “The sex market and drug trade thrived in the area, and homeless encampments dotted its streets. Many local theaters — once legitimate operations showcasing the performances of renowned actors like Lionel Barrymore — had become home to peep shows and [censored] movies.”
The government decided it wanted to become part of the solution, not the problem, so they all banded together to make it work. Times Square became what it was due to the very things Ocasio-Cortez despises. Corporate investment, corporate tax breaks, corporate advertising, corporate entertainment. Now, Times Square is a tourist destination, but apparently, it’s not what she envisions her city as.If Ocasio-Cortez had her way, New York City would descend back into the cesspool that it was. Instead of jobs at Amazon, young women can look forward to employment with the corner pimp. Young men will make ends meet by dealing drugs. This is not the New York that New Yorkers want, which is evidenced by the extreme backlash the starlet of the Democrat Party is currently facing over her being the destroyer of opportunity for many New Yorkers.
