[NYguy]

Meanwhile, the thought of a Times Square casino stirs up the headlines...



https://gizmodo.com/times-square-nyc...nes-1849683511

Casino Developers Want to Fill Times Square With Surveillance Drones
"If the city makes this high-stakes bet on casino surveillance, I worry they’ll gamble away the future of our public streets," said one privacy expert.





ByThomas Germain
October 20, 2022

There’s great news if you’re a fan of gambling and flying, spying robots.

Times Square, fifth circle of hell and home of the world’s dumbest ads, could be the site of New York City’s next casino. Caesars Entertainment has teamed up with developer SL Green Realty Corporation in a bid for a casino license, and they’re trying to sweeten the pot with a proposal that is going to drive you wild if you hate privacy.

....A new gambling house could have a huge economic impact on Times Square and the city at large. Tourists and New Yorkers have been slow to return to the area after the pandemic, thanks in part to a recent panic over rising crime rates. The truth is crime rates have gone up percentage-wise, but they’re still at historic lows. And no matter the facts about crime, the experts who spoke to Gizmodo said one thing is clear: increasing surveillance is a bad solution.

“At a time when our cars, subway rides, and busses are more monitored than ever, adding a new fleet of drones and AI cameras will rob us of the right to even walk down the street untracked,” said Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP). “The system will waste money, be ripe for abuse, and it won’t do a thing about the real drivers of crime.”

Let’s take a look at the facts. There was a big spike in homicides in New York City during the pandemic. Some were particularly disturbing, including a mass shooting on the subway last April. But according to Bloomberg News, the murder rate fell lower than it has been in decades prior to the pandemic, and today, the number of homicides about the same as it was in 2009. In the dark days of New York’s 1970s and ‘80s, the homicide rate was five times higher than it is now.

So why have we been hearing so much about crime in the Big Apple? It’s because the news has been hyping it up. Bloomberg’s analysis shows that the number of times the media mentioned New York shootings in the last few years is totally unrelated to the actual number of shootings. There’s an old saying in journalism, “if it bleeds it leads,” and reporters and talking heads have clearly been taking that to heart.

Of course, the public isn’t digging through crime stats, they’re hearing the headlines and getting justifiably freaked out. Right on cue, political figures are jumping on the chance to show they’re tough on crime, and surveillance gets trotted out as a solution. New York Governor Kathy Hochul, announcing the rollout of more cameras on the NYC subway system, said recently, “You think Big Brother is watching you on the subway? You’re absolutely right. That is our intent.”

“The very worst time to introduce new surveillance tools like drones that will have profound and lasting impacts on privacy and justice is when people are worried about their safety,” said Evan Selinger, a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology who studies surveillance technology. We should be asking, according Selinger, “whether the proposal is security theater that promotes a false sense of safety while creating dangerous infrastructure that in all likelihood will be abused.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/n...es-square.html

Would a Casino Be Good for Times Square?
The Broadway League opposes a proposal to open a Caesars Palace in the area, but developers are trying to line up restaurants and unions to lobby for it.


By James Barron
Oct. 21, 2022

The battle to win a New York City casino license has heated up, with a real estate developer and a gambling powerhouse proposing a Caesars Palace casino in Times Square. The developer, SL Green Realty Corporation, and the gambling giant Caesars Entertainment are trying to line up restaurants, retailers and construction workers in a pro-casino coalition.

This comes a month after another real estate colossus, Related Companies, joined with the Las Vegas gambling giant Wynn Resorts in a bid for a casino in Related’s Hudson Yards complex.

I asked Dana Rubinstein, who covers New York City politics, about the proposal from SL Green and Caesars.

What would a casino mean for Times Square? How would it change the neighborhood?

That’s a hard question to answer, in part because the development team has yet to release many specifics, and in part because Times Square is an unusual location. It’s at the heart of New York City’s tourist trade and is packed to the gills with out-of-towners, transit, traffic and neon lights. It’s so full of activity that it’s not clear that the average New Yorker would notice the arrival of a casino there.

Aren’t theater owners concerned that a casino would nudge Broadway shows aside as a main attraction in Times Square? How are the theaters doing at the box office? And what does the union that represents performers have to say?

Broadway is struggling. Fewer theaters have shows running than before the pandemic, and they are grossing less revenue. “The Phantom of the Opera,” Broadway’s longest-running show, is closing. And the Broadway League, which represents theater owners and producers, told members on Tuesday that it was opposed to a Times Square casino. In a statement, the league said a casino would risk the industry’s stability, though it did not specify how.

But the industry is by no means speaking with a unified voice. The Actors’ Equity Association, the union that represents actors and stage managers, supports the casino bid, presumably because the casino will come with unionized jobs.

The would-be casino operators want to deploy surveillance drones in Times Square. Why?

The developers argue that Times Square risks falling into decline again — that it is dirtier and less safe these days and needs the investment that they can provide by dedicating some of their gambling revenue to the neighborhood. And they’ve proposed a neighborhood safety plan devised by Bill Bratton, the former New York City police commissioner.

When I spoke with him, he argued that casinos do not bring additional crime — assuming they have adequate safety plans in place. He also predicted that drones would become an integral component of policing in the years to come, because they give officers “the ability to effectively monitor something from above, rather than being lost in the crowd flow below.”

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Right outside the potential Caesars...


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