As you have probably heard by now, the City has painted large swathes of Times Square red. This is apparently the aesthetic follow-up to the cordoning off of a chunk of the area for pedestrian traffic and the migration of hundreds of lawn chairs.
Here are a few of the other things Mayor Bloomberg is planning to make Times Square just about the best it's ever been!
1. Hundreds of garden gnomes will be placed along Seventh Avenue. (One looks like Waldo! Look for him!)
2. A Jazzercise session will be conducted in Duffy Square every day at 11 AM. Bring your own mat.
3. Tiki lamps and Chinese lanterns will brighten up the place at night.
4. The Naked Cowboy will be replaced by a mime.
5. A ball cage for the kids will be installed on the triangle just below 46th Street.
6. Roving waiters will take orders for non-alcoholic Mojitos, which are just as good as the other kind.
7. The TKTS booth will be replaced by a take-out-only Applebee's franchise.
8. A giant remote control, roughly the size of a twin bed, will now control the Jumbotro. Tourists can work it by jumping on the buttons—just like Tom Hanks danced on that giant keyboard in "Big"!
9. The name of the area will be changes to Ye Olde Times Square Village.
The Tiki lamps -- if they are more than 10 feet tall and breath fire -- might help.
ReplyDeleteDid you make all of those up? Or is this a game of "which one is real"? Cause I'm sure some of those actually crossed their minds...
ReplyDeleteI made them all up.
ReplyDeleteAm I missing something about what makes the car-free Times Square plan so terrible? In general I share your distaste for Bloomberg's policies, but I happen to think this initiative is a major positive step toward making this city's streets less hazardous to pedestrians.
ReplyDeleteYou're entitled to your own opinions, naturally... I just hope you aren't dismissing the entire livable streets movement just because Bloomie wants to tack his name on it here and there.
Ian: I was actually (believe it or not) quite ready to embrace the new pedestrian free Times Square. In fact, I've long wished they barred traffic on 42nd Street between 7th and 8th and made it a pedestrian mall. But the way Times Square is now, it's just tacky and shabby and sloppy and suburban and tonally wrong. I've been to many pedestrian areas in cities all over the world. Most are joyous and airy and lovely. This just seems ugly. People plop and sleep and slurp sodas. If they rethink it (no lawn chairs!), it might be wonderful.
ReplyDeleteyou made them up? Crap, I was looking forward to a little bit of mallofamerica in NYC
ReplyDeleteThe car free thing is going to be crappy for now b/c they won't build any sort of real plaza until after this "trial period" with the lawn chairs and other assorted jnk. That said it seems to me that making more car free space is about the exact opposite of suburbanization.
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