Times Square: Enough Already

It occurred to me while watching those fab high definition time lapse videos how friggin' lame Times Square is. Let's review, shall we?

It's endlessly lionized in movies, television shows and countless, formulaic hip hop videos, but when was the last time you voluntarily set foot in Times Square? I'm a native New Yorker of forty-two years and I have YET to meet a fellow lifer that can actively stand the place. In fact, I don't know a single Manhattanite that spends any time there unless they absolutely, positively have to under pain of death. When I fleetingly worked at MTV News Online a few years back at 1515 Broaday (right in the veritable crotch of Times Square), having to claw my way in and out of the teeming ant heap twice a day was easily the toughest part of the gig (well, that and the whole getting unceremoniously laid off part). It's a bitch to move through (even with the re-designed plazas). It's lousy with slow-moving human cattle. It's a garish eyesore of retina-immolating advertisements and cheap-ass touristy shit. Honestly speaking, what can you get in Times Square that you cannot find in practically every shitty mall across the damn country (other than a whopping great headache)?

Sure, we all remember the endearingly gritty Times Square the way it used to be. I remember watching the fabled cable access porn program, "Midnight Blue" on channel J as a youth and seeing scary images of Times Square and "the Deuce" (the old nickname for 42nd Street) when it was a roiling hotbed of cheap smut, drugs and prostitution. But even when I got older, I never harbored any desire to stroll on Times Square's byways. Maybe it was the "center of it all," but big whoop. There was nothing there for me that I couldn't find elsewhere in the city for a fraction of the hassle.

The Times Square of "Taxi Driver" and "Midnight Cowboy" is long gone, of course. Hell, even the Times Square depicted in Hall & Oates' "One on One" video is gone. All that's left now is a squeaky clean approximation of what residents of the Midwest think New York City is all about, when the truth of the matter is that as it stands now, there is positively nothing inherently "New York" about Times Square. Want to celebrate New York City? Great, but next time, let's focus on another location, shall we?

Comments

[Jon]

Fully agree. It always hurt my brain that people would fly thousands of miles to NYC and then eat at... The Hard Rock Cafe! The upside of that kind of extremely limited tourist mentality is that 90% of New York is *not* overrun by tourists because they're all in Times Friggin Square!

[dark1p]

Once every couple of years I used to like getting stoned and just standing in the middle of it at night. It's such a surreal place, with all the lighted signage.

But that was a long time ago. I wonder if people thought it sucked back in the 40s and 50s? It must have been a fairly cool place at some point....maybe the 20s and 30s? Ever?

[James Taylor]

I must admit I have on occasion voluntarily set foot in Times Square, but it's usually only in the clinging hope that it might not be all that bad. But it is that bad — in fact, it's worse. I could handle the gigantic billboards and the blinking neon. But now actual buildings aren't made from brick or concrete anymore: they're just an enormous TV facade with no windows. The Times Square depicted in Vanilla Sky (that's Vanilla Sky up top, right?) already seems out-dated. The death knell came when they closed off Seventh Avenue (or was it Broadway?). That was the day New York City handed Times Square over to the tourists.

[ken mac]

yes, when even Hall and Oates refer to a better Times Square you know the place is beyond dead...

[Ed]

I disagree, Time Square right now is very much New York now that they've turned the entire rest of the city into an approximation of what residents in the Midwest think New York is about.

But I also avoid setting foot there. But I've recently found myself avoiding Union Square as well, which actually now looks like an outdoor mall on Long Island. Its getting harder and harder to mentally wall this stuff off as it spreads and spreads.