Both as a visitor and on assignments I have walked or driven along Times Square streets in New York City. The first time was in 1940 and the last time during the late 1990s, more than fifty years after the first event. Since my last visit twenty years have passed to this writing, and I have been reviewing my memory on the emergence of secular and religious culture as represented in this American context that reflect meaningfully the major cultures in the world of influence. New York is for much of the world what Rome was to the Roman Empire, or Athens was to ancient Greece, but not interpreted in militaristic or governmental terms as the Roman and Greek cultures were at the time. Both the ancient cultures have emerged to history as centers for concepts of civilization. (We acknowledge we deal here with Western Culture. The Eastern has its own story.) Observations here do not diminish the meaning or culture in great cities like London, Paris, Berlin, and other influential cities of the world. New York is perceived as great: with the United Nations presence, the varieties of educational institutions, the influence of Wall Street financing, the center for such factors as annual style shows in everything from clothing to automobiles, international interests shared with the national capitol, great museums and tourist attractions – and the list lengthens. The major religions of the world are active in the city although now appearing to have marginal influence on daily life.
In the 40s in New York the popular LaGuardia was mayor (reading the funnies to children by radio on Sunday mornings) and attacking crime lords during the week; churches reached out to the public; and, there was a strong effort to improve the seamy life that had infected the city in the flow of the poor from nations to skid row and filthy neighborhoods managed by criminals. (The denomination with which my name is attached had been born on a Broadway theater stage some decades earlier and was flourishing in the 40s. I attended meetings in that church just a block off Broadway both as a student and later as an official in a sponsored college.) The impact of ministers like Fosdick, Ayers, and other leading clergy was meaningful. I saw the results first hand and preached in some of the churches. The story lengthens and changed. After World War II the decline in Times Square became shameful to the city. The carnality of the entertainment became blatant. The good citizens entered the area for their jobs, but got away from the center by nightfall. Crime made security arrangements a major matter. My denomination ultimately moved central offices to another state. That great church and bookstore no longer exist in the Times Square area. Some of the churches I visited, even ministered in, are gone or reduced in attendance and influence. The New York Times sold its iconic building in the area named from the newspaper. Religion has become, in the recovery of the city under effective/reform mayors a marginal matter in the story of the secular city.
A renaissance began. Cleaning up Times Square began. The girlie shows and sordid businesses were pressed out of business in the area. Massive crime syndication was broken, and leaders began to recover decency for the city and the Times Square district. Billy Graham attracted full Yankee Stadium crowds when he preached there. Accents were made on cleaning up neighborhoods where earlier I had seen junk and garbage piled next to homes along the street. The effort was costly, but leaders were determined. The story is lengthy, but heartening, as the people of New York reclaimed the will to have an acceptable city. Skipping over much of the story, and to stay with the purpose of these Pages, what is the outcome, as I perceive it? The main matter here relates to spiritual meaning. The city has become committed to eclecticism – taking the best (as perceived to be the best) of the cultures related to humanism (decency and development) and quietly leaving the rest. In Jesus’ day on earth Jerusalem was a good city as seen by the people of the era. Herod had renovated the Temple into a magnificent structure surpassing the previous one. However, the spiritual reality was mixed with an eclecticism that lost or diluted the meaning of faith in God. There are many ways in which we can lose first objectives of the word from God. We may have achieved in our time, not forced by terror or even atheism, a muted whisper of the gospel of Christ. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020