Will Broadway Pedestrian Plazas DOOM Times Square?

i work in midtown too and there are more than enough free places to sit in midtown and eat, sleep or have coffee, plus we have this little out of the way greenery with free seating for 100,000 called Central Park... the only effect closing Broadway has had is to totally screw up traffic in midtown by pushing it all over to West End and 9th Ave. Of course whinny people who work in midtown and never go anyplace else probably won't notice how much traffic is affected by this, but i don't think we should close Broadway to make a seating area that is rarely used just so Bloomberg can build his own version of Versailles.

What boloney. People are tired of tourists so they're looking elsewhere? Tourists are spending money while they're out there looking stupid and acting like sleepwalking morons. Anyone who says otherwise is just looking for a reason to get on Bloomberg's ass and ride it for cheap. Yeah, I hate tourists too. But I work in midtown, and I like having someplace to sit down and eat, or make a phone call, or wait for a friend. Not everyone who works midtown works in an office or has enough dough to pay for every minute they spend outside between appointments.

The tourists didn't elect the mayor, we did.

Good point ! So ask yourself this question , WHY ?

because, as unbelievable as it seems, the alternative was worse.

maybe Bloomberg's opposition can try again after he does something to demonstrate that he can actually run the city. a platform of "I'm not Mike Bloomberg" simply is not sufficient justification for people to vote someone into office.

There are always gonna be throngs of tourists in TS, no matter what. But cutting out the traffic lanes was a bad idea. Broadway and 7th are 2 main arteries. They're also aesthetically pleasing as they are literally "the crossroads of the world".

Oh, And those Pedo Plaza's are death to Times Sq. People . Good Move Bloomy .

Bloomberg's not an "Ass wanker" . That would be an insult to the man's creative ability to enrich the social/morel fabric of this once great city . Just look at all the wonderful things he has done for NYC . If you own property, You have the City on your side with the annual rent increases that are driving all the "BAD" folk out . If your a Touring the city then you love what Bloomberg has done with the place ! Fancy shops opening up all over the place charging you sky rocketing prices for the basic needs . Oh, and let's not forget the newly repaved streets, and "Upgraded" Sewer systems in "Certain" neighborhoods, In addition to those bright-ass traffic lights that you can see from four blocks away in a driving snow storm ! Then theres the Bus, & Subways forwhich he has board members on the MTA Board placed their to vote his way . Yeah, Bloomberg has done "Major " things for this city that we should be "Grateful" for it and reffering to him as an "Ass-Wanker" just doesn't suit the man's overall genius ! i think "ASS CLOWN" would be a more becomming homonym for Mr. Mayor . Don't you all think so ?

I used to avoid TS like the plague…Too many idiots in too small of a space… But, now I don’t mind as much when I have to walk across Midtown. I like that I can stop for just a moment and take in the cacophony of what is a unique place without constantly being bumped into or the need to move out of the friggin way of tourists.

Sometimes it is actually interesting to take a seat at a table and watch the visitors and all their Walmart-ness stumble around starring gaw-gaw at all the lights. This just couldn’t be done before Broadway was closed.

As for the tourists… In general, I’m not a fan… But I am glad they’re here. I want them to spend every last dime they have, and max out their credit cards to pay for their “New York” experience. Their contribution to the city’s economy and the tax coffers helps keep it possible for me to still live here. As much as we dislike them, we need them.

The commercial property owners need to grasp that the closing of Broadway has little to nothing to do with them having empty office space… Empty office space is in every area of Manhattan.

Blowing through Times Sq. in a cab at 2 am is a singular pleasure, not being jostled into the street by a tourist pales in comparison.

I have to walk through Times Square twice a day, so I think I have a good feel for the changes (at least as a pedestrian -- I never go through by car). My sense is that it's a positive move.

Before, you had pretty much the same number of yahoo jaybirds standing five abreast and staring at all the twinkly lights. (Oooo...electricity.) But because most of the area was taken up by streets, they were all jammed into the sidewalks -- you sometimes had to bash your way through if you wanted to go anywhere. (I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing -- it could be very therapeutic.)

With the new layout, you maybe have some small additional amount of tourists (because they stay longer). But there's room to get around them -- you can step off the sidewalks and cut through the "plaza" and get where you're going. Plus, you never get stuck in the center island -- if you can make the first light, you're home free. So I don't mind it at all.

I like tourists. Having them come to the city give's me a sense of civic pride. Having said that, the plaza's suck. It totally changes the character of Times Square.

""You might as well be at a mall in Paramus," an accomplished Midtown real-estate executive told me...

This real estate expert knows a lot more about the disastrous results of Sadik-Khan's touristification of Times Square than any blogger.

Dump DOT Diktator Sadik-Khan in 2010!

Let me guess, you conducted the interview at his new cardboard condo development under a bridge in Paramus?

Extend it up all the way to the park, and down to Union Square, for all I care. Just make sure something is done for the space to keep it from looking like a lawnchair party.

Drivers can stick it up their tailpipe for wanting to drive through TS in the first place.

Here's what I see: my cab gets thru TS much more quickly heading downtown than it did before; there are no more tourists, but they are slightly more dispersed (this is a relative thing, of course); TS is still an unpleasant place, but slightly less unpleasant than before the plaza experiment. I say keep 'em, make 'em permanent, so NYers can get where they're going and touristas can enjoy their gawking at the pretty, pretty lights.

Times Square does have way to many tourist (as in can't even walk through the place too many), and everyone I know who has to work there hates the area for that reason. But this happened years before the plazas were put in, and has nothing to do with the plazas at all! Its a completely fake, inconsequential, controversy.

this is still the stupidest move on the midget's part, and restore the bowtie too!

Back to the short jokes? Really, is everyone from Wyandanch that much taller?

Note to Cuozzo: it would've been much funnier to stand in the middle of Times Square and scream "Sadik-KHAAAAAAAAAAAN." Probably about as effective, too.

I think The Facts would happily oblige...

Or redo the Charlton Heston finishing line from "Planet of the Apes": Damn you! Damn you all to Hell!

If only Janette Sadik-Khan were younger and more attractive. I'd be on her like Tiger woods on mistress #13.

Has anyone made a study to find out if there are more tourists now then there were before the "plazas" were created? Oops probably not.

And NYC, no matter how you try to transform it, ain't going to have a Piazza Navona quality experience. Why you ask? Because there are too many jerks downtown making decisions about urban planning based on their spending too many of their vacation dreams going to the "culture" parks in Orlando.

If you want to increase tourists, try starting with moving the Canal street vendors north to Times Square.

"Has anyone made a study to find out if there are more tourists now then there were before the "plazas" were created? Oops probably not."

Wrong!

What I meant to say and question is, "Are there more tourists that come to New York because of the plazas and street closures?" Got it? I don't think so.

The reason they come back are things like those plazas.

prove it.

It appears you were one of the regular patrons of those crack dealing whores.

People in large quantities have come to Times Square way before your mother was trying to abort you. The plazas only allow all those fools to get on morning america type TV shows to impress their friends out there in one of those fly over sates and see the naked cowboy without getting smoked by the regular New Yorkers that are trying to get to work.

You're not too bright.

OK I can accept that. So what are the results?

I'm not saying there haven't been unintended consequences, but what exactly has changed in terms of tourists clogging up the sidewalks looking elsewhere? Although I never go to Times Square, I thought all New Yorkers have always hated it for the throngs of tourists, and that these pedestrian plazas in the least fan them out into a wider swath of sidewalk?

As for commercial real estate, all of my friends who work in Times Square hate it, and I constantly make fun of them for it. The pedestrian plazas have nothing to do with it. People that live in NY hate Times Square, as well as anyone forced to go to their office there 5 days a week.

Do you think Times Square was always a trailer park Disneyland? As recently as Ghouliani's first term one could still observe, and even be assaulted by, a row of crack whores in the wee hours of the morning.

I've been passing through Times Square regularly since around '76 when I bought my first electric bass on 48th Street. During the '80's I used to go to Nirvana in the old Allied Chemical building (once on New Years' Eve) Seeing Midnight Oil at (what is now) the Hard Rock was the first big event I attended after 9/11. I have no I idea what you mean by "New Yorkers hate it" ???

No cars is a quality improvement. Tourists or not, Times Square has always held some attraction for New Yorkers.

Two things that make the Times Square area valuable to the commercial real estate market is it's close proximity to the Port Authority Bus terminal, Grand Central Station and to a lesser degree Penn Station. All of them feeding the "outer burbs." Other than that the area totally sucks.

I find it strange that the tourists would flock to that area. There's nothing going on except maybe a Broadway show and over priced restaurants. Again I say the area sucks.

I wonder what the Post's motivation for this is. A few years ago, when the various Ground Zero plans were being mulled over, I seem to recall Cuozzo accusing the Times of using their op/ed page to try to sway public opinion toward proposals that would add the least square footage, which would be most favorable for the Times Company's real estate interests, as their new tower was still under construction at the time.

Tourism is one of the biggest industries in the city. Sure, let's shut it down and put all the unemployed tour guides, hotel workers and sundry tourist related workers on unemployment benefits and then on welfare because they can't get jobs, that'll help.

Too bad the plazas don't look like plazas. They look like streets that are closed. And they are broken up by the cross streets so it's really like hanging out in a giant parking lot.

It's like a giant parking lot with chairs, tables, a red surface, groups of people and no cars. That's not like a parking lot at all, really.

I meant it as in it's just a slab of asphalt with zero charm. You can take the cars out of a parking lot and fill it with lawn chairs but it still looks like a parking lot.

That's because of the temporary test run. If this bullshit becomes permanent, expect a canopy over little ficus trees, gurgling fountains, mall kiosks and carts that sell glow beads.

So real estate was more valuable when all those throngs of tourists were crowded on tiny sidewalks? This argument makes no sense.

To me the real question is whether the closure has made Midtown gridlock better or worse. I suspect it has made it better, since it makes the traffic pattern in Times Square clearer allowing for smoother flow of cars--and more importantly it has taken Herald Square from a 6-way to a 4-way intersection so the light can stay green in each directly a little longer.

Yeah, there's just no way there could be any other reason why office space leasing in Times Square isn't going so well, is there?

OH MY GOD U GUYZ NO CARS AND THERES ROOM FOR PEOPLE THIS SUUUUCKS

What fucking idiots Cuozzo and Peyser are.

Keep it, keep it, keep it! And do the same to Kings Highway between Ocean Ave and Ocean Pkwy.

As for the tourists. Manhattan is the only thing keeping all those tourists out of Brooklyn, so far. I say give up the whole island to them.

And Cuozzo's a brutish, agoraphobic motorhead who's most likely to sprinkle "dese", "dem", and "dose" in polite conversation at high-brow parties.

Lived in NYC my entire life, currently work just south of Times Square and I cant stand tourists... but I LOVE the pedestrian plazas. You don't understand how amazing it is walking down Broadway in the morning, no honking, no fumes. I LOVE the absence of cars. This city needs less cars.

agreed. what the fuck is the person quoted as saying it 'has left us with slow-moving hordes of sightseers sprawled across asphalt-paved, cheaply furnished pedestrian "plazas."' and the re-opening of the car lanes makes it any better? people are gonna park their cars there and get out? people are gonna leap out of a taxi and get out when they see your pathetic shop?

get over it, whiners.

tourists are spending TONS of $$$$. the plazas ain't going anywhere

Bloomberg is an ass wanker who should keep his stupid social engineering ideas for pillow talk with his beard.

Ooh, playing the "Bloomberg is Gay"-card. Haven't seen that one before.

Well the "he's rich" and the "he's short" stuff was getting over-used. Nice to see that in the absence of any valid criticism, at least the suburbanites have some new material.

I look forward to the day Times Square is killed by these pedestrian plazas, and I can finally walk through that area without being forced into traffic by throngs of tourists.

Did I miss the part where there were not a lot of tourists in Times Square before getting rid of the cars?

The Post is so 20th Century. Like cars. If you think more cars are a great idea, move to New Jersey (cue: Openspleens)

I say extend this successful "experiment" from Columbus Circle to Union Square.

Right now, the Post is a vanity project for Rupert Murdoch. As soon as he's gone, the Post will be gone, too. It's been losing millions every year since he bought it. Nobody else will put up with a money pit like that.

Yea, all the tourists and no cars have destroyed the market for commercial real estate in Times Square.

Not only did the damn tourists destroy the market in Times Square, they destroyed the market all over the country! Heck all over the world! Real Estate is collapsing everywhere!!

Won't someone PLEASE stop Bloomberg and his rabid band of pedestrian-friendly DOT staffers?!?!? Think of the drivers!!

PS - what a lame-ass hack job. Can't these idiots at the Post do any better? A third-grader could come up with a better argument. Ideally using the phrase 'Poopy Pants'.

I hate it, even more than I already hate Times Sq.

get rid of it.. biking through times square became double the nightmare after it was put in.. broadway has the best direct bike lane from midtown to downtown

well it WOULD be great if it weren't for all the clueless tourists walking in the bike lane... I say let 'em have the pedestrian plaza because they obviously need the room... there are other equally great (and less congested) paths downtown.