It could be an artist trying to make sense of the world around them. Broadway theaters was surrounded by totally different neighbors in the 1960s-1980s than today. The dancing halls of Sweet Charity in the 1960s and then, the setting on which The Life is based. Or as Sam Harris said in his intro to the show's 1997 Tony performance, it was "before they made the streets squeaky clean for Mickey Mouse."
Maybe Cy Coleman did or didn't have other reasons to revisit the topic, but I wouldn't dismiss this factor if we're retroactively dissecting his artistic motivations.
In other Life news, Sam Harris is livestreaming Openly Gray from 54 Below as I type. And it's a nice watch.
