The Devil's Playground: A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square

This book really captures the characters, glamour, degradation and rebirth of Times Square since it's beginnings in a very entertaining and informative way. The story is weaved together wonderfully incorporating social, political , cultural and architectural details in a lively narrative that was a pleasure to read. From the Lobster Palaces to Flo Ziegfield to the speakeasys of the 20's to Irving Berlin to the tawdry porno theaters and massage parlors of the 70's to todays tourist mecca....it's all here. Traub has done a great job of researching and documenting the history of a place that does it's best to bury it's past. You can walk those mid-town streets after reading this and recognize historical significance that is all too easy to take for granted in a place as busy and bustling as Times Square.

James Traub's wonderful book, "The Devil's Playground : A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square" will provide readers with a comprehensive look at what was once the crossroads of the world. Scholarly without being dull, authoritative without being smug, Traub vividly portrays the rise, fall, and ambivalent revival of the world's center of amusement and advertising. I say "ambivalent" not because I disapprove of the transition which took place in the 1990s (anyone nostalgic for the "personality" of post 1960s Times Square is oblivious to the misery of the prostitutes and addicts who were stuck there) but because it smacks too much of outsiders moving in. But, as Mr. Traub suggests, we needed people from outside New York to believe that the place could be rehabilitated--we New Yorkers had given up on it after all.All the familiar characters are here (Hammerstein, Runyon, et al.) and some new ones that we don't always associate with the former Longacre Square. And some of the events described in this book will surprise even the most "seasoned" of New York buffs. The book is as entertaining as the place once was and now strives to be."The Devil's Playground" is the perfect antidote to the many flawed books about Times Square--in particular the error-riddled "Down 42nd" by Marc Eliot. It is well worth the read.

James Traub has penned an energetic paean to the world's most famous (and occasionally infamous) "square."Although some readers may be put off by a sometimes dry and overly-academic writing style, Traub more than makes up for it with a dazzling synthesis of sociological history, political intrigue, architectural evolution and brilliant sketches of the giddy early days of advertising. It may surprise some to know that the Square was awash in luminous and neon-drenched marketing mirages as early as the first decade of the 20th century. Through it all, the pulsing adrenaline charge experienced by a walk through Times Square saturates this unique work. This reviewer was reminded of Saul Bellow's incomparable descriptive flourish from Seize the Day:"On Broadway it was still bright afternoon and the gassy air was almost motionless under the leaden spokes of sunlight, and sawdust footprints lay about the doorways of butcher shops and fruit stores. And the great, great crowd, the inexhaustible current of millions of every race and kind pouring out, pressing round, of every age, of every genius, possessors of every human secret, antique and future, in every face the refinement of one particular motive or essence -- I labor, I spend, I strive, I design, I love, I cling, I uphold, I give way, I envy, I long, I scorn, I die, I hide, I want. Faster, much faster than any man could make the tally. The sidewalks were wider than any causeway; the street itself was immense, and it quaked and gleamed and it seemed ... to throb at the last limit of endurance."Amen.You'll feel all of that and more in this worthy book.

Times Square has it all-history, entertainment, great characters, crime, sex-and so does The Devil's Playground. As a New Yorker who has always been fascinated by Times Square, I picked the book up in a book store, intending only to browse. I couldn't put it down (but did eventually to pay for it). This is a wonderful and thoroughly absorbing book that will educate you without pain, not to mention provide you with lots of amusing anecdotes to use at dinner parties.