Can Jay-Z save Times Square?

Times Square was Disney-fied in the 1990s. It was plaza-paved in the Aughts and Elmo-colonized ever since.  But is it ready to be Jay-Z’d?

Let’s hope so, because the “Crossroads of the World” needs new blood. The billionaire rapper and entrepreneur’s Roc Nation, which recently made deals to plant its flag at two Times Square locations, might be our best hope to arrest a slow but visible decline in Time Square’s fortunes.

Entertainment juggernaut Roc Nation made the Super Bowl halftime show more electrifying since it took it over four years ago. And its Times Square invasion might be just as transformative.

Jay-Z’s superstar acts and the crowds they’ll draw are guaranteed to change the chemistry of Midtown’s street scene. Whether for the better depends on Roc Nation’s commitment to booking talent with mass, kid-friendly appeal — and to better policing across Times Square.

Nothing can bring back the bright-lights energy of Times Square’s golden era of Frank Sinatra at the Paramount and the World War II victory celebrations. A return to the “bad old days” when muggers and pimps ruled the Bowtie before Rudy Giuliani and Disney restored the dream is equally unlikely.

More plausible is the continued backsliding into a tacky scene dominated by fast food, predatory cartoon characters and cannabis outlets. Times Square is at a look-both-ways crossroads as crime ticks up and quality stores and office tenants leave. True, the district has reclaimed most of its on-foot juice since its pandemic “ghost town” days. Times Square Alliance president Tom Harris called the trend “peaks and valleys” but mostly upward. Last week’s 262,000 daily visitors were only 17 percent fewer than in 2019 and 196 percent more than in 2021.

But things ain’t what they were 10 years ago. Broadway shows are fewer. A ping-pong parlor is “replacing” Caroline’s comedy club. Although crime is nowhere near the levels of the creepy 1970s and 1980s, theater owners, restaurateurs and real estate company SL Green, which hopes to launch a casino at 1515 Broadway, say that the uptick needs to be reversed.

Jay-Z’s arrival might arrest this descent. Today, Times Square strollers bump into live bands, podcasts and broadcasts, mass yoga classes, goofy and impromptu performance art and of course “desnudas” and the Naked Cowboy. But Roc Nation can bring to the Bowtie something it never had — a professionally produced, scheduled series of acts at a single outdoor location, drawing on Roc’s unparalleled roster of artists.

Its most visible presence, starting next year, will be on a 4,000 square-foot, open-air stage overlooking Father Duffy Square, the Red Steps and the TKTS booth. The stage is to project from the third floor of the soon-to-open Tempo by Hilton Hotel, a 46-story tower at the southeast corner of Seventh Avenue and West 47th Street.

It’s unlikely we’ll see a repeat of Rihanna’s crotch-grabbing shockers. But nobody really knows what to expect. Jay-Z’s people rebuffed our repeated attempts to interview them.

TSX Entertainment, which has leased floors two through 10 of the 46-story hotel tower, promises all kinds of digital fun, including an app that will let everyone post  a 15-second paid video on an enormous, wraparound, 18,000 square-foot screen.

But TSX Entertainment co-founder and co-CEO Nick Holmsten, who brought Roc Nation into the picture, could only say his outfit and Jay-Z’s will “collaborate “to produce authentic, immersive and exclusive  experiences” from the open-air elevated stage.

There will also be “tentpole performances and monumental annual events.” If that sounds like county-fair-type stages on the streets, a TSX rep explained, “Tentpole events are big moments in pop culture, like the Half-Time Super Bowl performance and Coachella,  that people will travel from all over the world to see and experience.”

For all the uncertainty, what matters most is that live acts produced by one of the world’s leading impresarios can lure a new audience to Times Square , which urgently needs more New Yorkers than it currently draws.

Meanwhile, Roc Nation signed on as a minority equity partner in SL Green’s and Caesars Entertainment’s controversial joint bid to launch a casino and hotel at 1515 Broadway, an office building two blocks south of the new hotel. The deal calls for Jay-Z to have a hand in programming, not at 1515 Broadway, but at various outdoor locations around the Bowtie.

However, that’s contingent on the state awarding the casino license to 1515 Broadway — which is one of more than a half-dozen pending proposals from other major real estate-gaming partnerships. The selection process alone could drag on through 2024 and construction take years more.

If the 1515 bid wins out, Roc Nation’s multiple locations could give Jay-Z  more sway over Times Square than any one person ever had. Possibly too much?

Mitchell L.  Moss, a  professor of Urban  Policy and Planning at New York University, isn’t worried that Jay-Z’s presence might overwhelm the neighborhood.

 “No single entertainment venue or enterprise will dominate Times Square,” Moss said. “Times Square is one of New York City’s global symbols — a “human switchboard” which attracts almost 500,000 people everyday.”

Even before Jay-Z takes the plunge, TSX got its feet wet, so to speak, with a live Super Bowl telecast on giant Times Square screens last week. “It was great,” said Alliance president Tom Harris of the event. “The latency [synch] between screen and sound was perfect…They seem like responsible partners and we are looking forward to working with them.”  

But to make Times Square new again,  Jay-Z will need to be more than merely responsible — but heroic.