DEEPA RAMASWAMY
2020
The Laws of Persuasion
Discretionary Zoning, Manageability, and
the Rise of the Urban Designer
ON MARCH 22, 1982, approximately 170 protesters were arrested in the Theater District of Manhattan in New York City while demonstrating against the impending demolition of the historic Astor, Gaiety, Morosco, Bijou, and Helen Hayes Theaters.' The protesters had erected a temporary stage where famous Broadway performers such as Jose Ferrer, Celeste Holm, and Tammy Grimes read plays and gave speeches imploring Mayor Ed Koch to save the theaters. Producer and director Joseph Papp had started the Save the Theaters campaign, which financially supported the protests and ran advertisements and articles in newspapers, to promote the cause. Nevertheless, the theaters were demolished later that year and replaced by the John Portman—designed Marriott Marquis Hotel. The project attracted criticism not only for its "awkward, gangling and out of touch" design that opaquely towered over the Theater District and Times Square but also for its new fifteen-hundred-seat Marquis Theater, which was accessible only from the hotel's third floor.'
The Marriott Marquis was the product of discretionary zoning laws that had been introduced by the New York City Planning Commission and Department of City Planning under Mayor John Lindsay's leadership in 1967. With the assistance of the newly convened Urban Design Group (UDG) and the newly minted position of urban designer in city government, the city's planning commission amended existing rule-based zoning laws, which were defined by standardized percentages and distribution of land uses, air, and light, to include discretionary zoning laws. This new type of zoning could be enforced on a case-by-case basis through negotiations and bargains with individual developers, thus allowing the city government to incentivize private-sector investments in public benefits such as plazas, parks, and landmark preservation with zoning variances, floor area bonuses, and tax abatements.
The planning commission also designated special zoning districts, which were areas with unique regulatory environments designed specifically for economic and land-use control. The first of these special zoning districts was the Special Theater District, which was established in 1968 and covered the area from Fortieth to Fifty-Seventh Streets and from Eighth Avenue to the Avenue of the Americas in midtown Manhattan. Discretionary zoning in the district allowed developers to demolish existing theaters, provided the development projects included new theaters to be built in place of the old ones. A 20 percent floor space bonus further incentivized developers to incorporate theaters into new construction. In his plan for the Marriott Marquis, Portman took advantage of these new regulations in the district and proposed demolishing five old theaters (plate 23).