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Times Square is almost like the heart of the city: The flashing lights, heart of the media world, the crowds, the tourist traps. But on the flipside, some New Yorkers avoid Times Square if they can because it's simply too crowded and stressful to navigate. The Times looks at the problem of the gridlock in Times Square, which can be traced to the high numbers of vendors on highly trafficked streets, plus smokers outside of office buildings and those concrete planters on the sidewalks to ward off bombers. And you can't forget the TRL crowds: Times Square Business Improvement District president Tim Thompson says, "I think having 10,000 teeny-boppers is great, but when you also have 500 vendors taking up 30 percent of the sidewalk, something has to give." Gothamist would like to add "tourists who stand still in the middle of the sidewalks (if you need to look at your map or want to take pictures, stand near a building or the edge of the sidewalk; it's about the perimeters, people!)" to the list of impediments to actual pedestrians. But even they can't keep us away from the ferris wheel at Toys R Us or the oh–so–ugly–but–oh–so–convenient movie megaplexes in Times Square.
The Cricket in Times Square is a great book about the heart of the city. And The Colossus of New York has a chapter about Times Square.
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i think they should open up a "hov pedestrian lane" or something. maybe call it the "nt path" for not tourist.
i also think you should be able to get a reasonably priced bottle of water in times square if you show your nyc i.d. or metrocard.
i've been living on west 48th for 4 months now, and my typcially very, very, extremely high level of pedestrian frustration peaked a couple of weeks ago. now i think my brain is doing one of those dissociative-defense manoeuvres, because walking through the square is now like meditation or a trance even--it's as if i'm floating along, and nobody is veering from side to side, or stopping suddenly, or irregularly slowing down and speeding up. i go to another place, a warm and quiet place. zen! bliss! oblivion!
i work on 43rd and 8th. i come to my office monday thru friday and i have experienced the trance of which you speak. however, one day in september i had to make my way to times square studios (where Good Morning America is filmed) on a Saturday morning. it was on that morning i realized what energy my body and mind must be expending on a typical day to get into that trance state. i realize tourists keep this city running, i realize i was once a tourist, i HELP people who are lost on the train, but there is something about the stagnant tourist on broadway in the 40s that makes my blood boil. who told them they could walk 6-across in their high school letter jackets?!
Oh, my! And I thought I was alone in my homicidal hatred of tourists walking 6-abreast and meandering on the sidewalk like grazing cattle!
I used to try to walk around such obstacles. I've given up, and now just charge through them, and enjoy the protesting squeals and occasional "thump!" as the overfed proto-angus from Spokane hits the sidewalk.
Worst thing is, you KNOW they are considerate and careful on their own boring, strip-mall sidewalks.
People who have not been brought up in barns know that you ALWAYS walk on the right, and you NEVER walk more than two-abreast, unless you want my shank implanted in your ribcage (ask the Navy - it's a regulation for sailors in port). Peasants!
Advise tourists to move out of the flow? According to the great urbanologist William Whyte, city-dwellers are the ones who excel at clogging up side walks. I've just dragged my copy of his great book "City" off the shelf. (It is a great gift for New Yorkers, btw.)
Whyte and his team were watching people at Saks Fifth Avenue and Fiftieth Street. "To our surprise, the people who stopped to talk did not move out of the main pedestrian flow; and if they had been out of it, they moved into it. The great bulk of the conversations were smack in the middle of the pedestrian flow -- the 100% location, to borrow the real estate term." As Whyte concludes, "It is a behavior universally deplored and practiced."
omg omg carson iz sooo totally hot i mean wtf who doesn't LUV him?!?!?!
notice how new yorkers are annoyed by tourists who don't know how to walk, but the president of the Times Square BID reserves his hatred for street vendors? You may not want your name engraved on a grain of rice, but you have to admit that the immigrants who hold those jobs work a lot of hours for little pay *and* have to spend all day in the middle of the tourist crowds. How come the BID never complains about Madame Tussaud's, which stands wax Morgan Freeman on the sidewalk and waits for the tourists to clog around it taking photos? It's the worst spot on all of 42nd street.
Isn't it obvious that the answer is to ban cars and make it a pedestrian/bike/(trolley?) space?
I have developed a loud, authoritarian "EXCUSE ME" for getting through the worst tourist clumps. It also works on the dumbasses who walk into the train and halt RIGHT IN FRONT of the door to grab that all important open space, nevermind the 2 or 3 people behind them still trying to board.
Sad to say, those are usually native New Yorkers.
I scared/astonished some tourist last year on 5th Ave. around Christmas time when I gave some guy the finger. What you need to do is act like a stereotypical New Yorker. Tourists like that. Its as if they are seeing some sort of exotic animal in its natural habitat.
Ban cars between 42nd St and 46th St. It would be great for Times Sq. businesses as I'm sure more people would go to the area without adding too much congestion.
I work on Fifth, in the 40s, and tourist congestion this time of year is about 5 times worse than usual, as people wander around and gawk and take pictures of things and take up space with their giant shopping bags.
And actually, I think sidewalk congestion in Chinatown, especially Canal Street in the summer time, is far worse than anything I've seen in Times Square.