I was reflecting the other day, when I read the post of John Portman's death, on the significance of his assault on the Broadway theatre and how we might view it in retrospect, aside from the obvious.
I was thinking about the inherent cynicism it represented, about Broadway and about New York: the notion that the city's culture was not worth much, and that what was needed was to plop Atlanta down in the middle of Times Square.
And then today I see these grosses (and yes we can discuss their significance as well) and it occurs to me that the 30 year ago cynicism was dealt with in a quintessentially New York way. The theatre in the hotel is dark, and has rarely been very bright, but this week the hotel's theatre neighbors, the survivors, surely made more money than the hotel did.
It's called resilience. |
