ABSTRACT
New York City 2001: the newly sanitized Times Square area sparkles. The Port Authority Bus Terminal is cleaner, the homeless less visible. The lights that shine on Broadway are virtually free of the neon signs that once announced the presence of porn theatres, X-rated video stores, and strip clubs. Illuminating the Great White Way in their stead are the marquees of a flagship Disney store and several renovated Broadway theatres-including the magnificent New Victory Theatre which presents first-rate family entertainments featuring artists and companies from around the world. Even the old battlehorse, the notorious sex emporium Show World, closed its doors and reopened as a tourist and souvenir center that occasionally features avant-garde theatre productions. According to a former manager, Show World will eventually be transformed again, this time into a virtual reality game arcade that will continue to transfix patrons through the excitation of their senses.1
