All of the talk about banning traffic in one of the busiest parts of the city, is finally being tried. (Or half tried: Seventh Avenue is still open.) Broadway between 47th and 42nd is now a pedestrian zone.
Read the New York Magazine article about the closures in Times and Herald Squares and about Janette Sadik-Kahn, the city's transportation commissioner.
The new furniture for the street has obviously not arrived yet. I think the temporary arrangement is a rather low class affair--Times Square shouldn't resemble a tail gate party or a backyard barbecue.
I also found it rather difficult to weave through all of the people sitting in the middle of the street. Part of this whole idea was to ease sidewalk congestion, but it now looks like we're going to be forced to navigate between pods of people resting between their fried shrimp at Bubba Gump's and their Planet Hollywood shopping sprees.
The new traffic patterns are hard to photograph. Seventh Avenue now cuts a giant swath through the square. Previous concrete islands have been chopped up and replaced with peculiar turn-only lanes.
It is a radically altered public space.
Only one avenue of traffic driving through Times Square?
Can't really call it the Crossroads of the World any more, can you?
As usual, Einstein says it best:
lmao...it is like when I went to London a few years ago and Picadilly f*ing square was all quiet
Posted by: Mary | May 31, 2009 at 09:21 PM
Wow, Robert! I'm shocked! I'm glad I saw Times Square before this happened. How can people take pictures of it now?
Posted by: Nancy M. | May 31, 2009 at 09:22 PM
Now the Eptome of Tacky ! Those hideous ugly beach chairs have got to g. whatever happenned to Sex, Sophistication and Glamour ??? Tha Astor Hotel, the Latin Quarter? the Rivoli, the Strand, the Paramount ? Disneyfied and Guilianied, yuk !!! The energy is gone, the crowds on the sidewalk, the traffic, I miss it, and once again those ugly plastic orange and white tacky traffic cones. What about Greenery? How about trees, plants, if there have to be barriers.
Posted by: Michael M. | May 31, 2009 at 09:22 PM
You should totally do a gentrified Vanilla Sky scene for one of your videos...it would be hilarious!
Posted by: Mary | May 31, 2009 at 09:23 PM
The hustle and bustle of time square will be forever changed.
Posted by: Ajlouny | August 06, 2009 at 12:03 AM