ABSTRACT
Viewing gentrification through the lens of crime reporting, this chapter considers the long running chronicle of New York’s most mediated missing child case. As the primary locus of Sharon Zukin’s 1982 Loft Living, SoHo is central to narratives of gentrification and their formation in the press. Reading archival coverage of the crime over its 40-year span, during which the New York Times alone published more than 300 stories, this research reflects on the construction of place in news and advertising media, as the press simultaneously decries and promotes the transformation of the area. In so doing, both crime and gentrification are explored as phenomena of mediation in which prior coverage serves as the reference point for historical truth claims.
