2025 Theses Master's

Toward a Preservation-Oriented Study of Nonresidential Cultural Displacement: A Case Study of Times Square’s Male Public Sexual Culture

Halle, Cecelia

Within the field of historic preservation, recent discussions have emerged surrounding the study of cultural displacement, that is, the erosion of long-standing, place-based cultural norms and practices caused partly by the closure of long-operating community institutions. This thesis considers a lesser-studied aspect of cultural displacement, examining how the phenomenon affects nonresidential publics. Such research may reveal histories of places that are absent or excluded from dominant preservation narratives.

This thesis employs two qualitative methods—in-depth interviewing and online forum comment analysis—to establish an augmented preservation-oriented approach for studying nonresidential cultural displacement. The methods were applied to a historical case study, focusing on the erosion and stigmatization of place-based social, cultural, and sexual practices found within the gay male adult theaters of Times Square during the 42nd Street Redevelopment Project between approximately 1970 and 2005. To test both methods, in-depth interviews were conducted with public-facing advocates for the adult theaters in Times Square, and comments on online forums were collected and analyzed for their shared recollections of the same subset of theaters.

The qualitative methods tested in this thesis were evaluated for their efficacy in identifying experiences of nonresidential cultural displacement. In-depth interviews were found to elicit extended narratives, often touching on social-spatial-cultural dimensions of cultural displacement. In contrast, online forum comment analysis more readily identified physically observable neighborhood change. When applied together, the dual methodologies present a robust qualitative approach to assessing nonresidential experiences of cultural displacement. Through the thematic analysis conducted with datasets from both qualitative methods, this research also demonstrates how the study of nonresidential experiences of cultural displacement offers preservationists a nuanced and replicable method to identify, characterize, and interpret (counter)narratives from marginalized publics.