The City Resilient

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Thirty years ago, my morning commute took me on foot across New York City's West 42nd Street. It was not a good place to start the day. The street was lined with peepshows, porn theaters, and shabby shops, and its sidewalks were littered with trash and a smattering of unconscious human beings from the night before. Dante would have been speechless.

Today, critics complain that 42nd Street is too squeaky-clean, that it has been "Disneyfied." I prefer to marvel at the rebirth of the storied entertainment mecca New Yorkers once called the Deuce. New York City's rebirth is a particularly inspiring story, but it has been repeated to one degree or another--with a few notable …