Company Town

* Entertainment: The prostitutes, drug dealers and sex shops of New York’s Times Square got what amounts to an eviction notice Thursday: Walt Disney, Madame Tussaud and big theaters for stage and screen are moving in. As workers already renovating a theater on 42nd Street paused on their scaffolds to cheer, Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced agreements by Disney and other companies to rebuild key properties on the block. Times Square became famous in the early 1900s as a center for live theater and the venue of performers including W.C. Fields and Jimmy Durante. In the 1960s, many theaters resorted to showing pornographic flicks. Drugs, prostitution and other hustles flourished into the 1980s. The new development project, touted as one of the nation’s largest urban renewal programs, is expected to create 49,000 permanent jobs statewide and bring in more than $330 million annually in city and state tax revenue. The project includes Walt Disney Co.’s $34-million renovation of the 92-year-old New Amsterdam Theater and construction of a Disney Store next door; a $30-million Madame Tussaud’s wax museum; a 25-screen cinema complex by American Multi-Cinemas Entertainment Inc., and renovation of the Academy and Lyric theaters.