Investor and restaurateur Ken Sturm has been doing business in Times Square for more than three decades. The owner of Bacall’s Steakhouse on West 44th Street and the world-famous Ellen’s Stardust Diner (named after his mother) on Broadway and 52nd Street, Sturm has seen what the pandemic has done to the heart of Manhattan.
He thinks it’s time the neighborhood got a shot in the arm, and he’s joined a group of neighborhood business people backing a proposal by SL Green Realty, Jay-Z’s Roc Entertainment, and Caesars Entertainment to build a Las Vegas-style casino in a high rise in Times Square. The group is trying to counter the arguments put forth by two neighborhood groups — the Broadway League and Community Board 5 — battling both it and a competing Midtown Manhattan plan for a casino in nearby Hudson Yards.
