New York Minute

“No respect I tell you; I got no respect. Jeeze.” ©SheilaMoeschenPhotography

You can’t have New York City without Times Square. It’s not that Times Square is a beautiful part of the city–it is very much not. But for better or worse, it’s part of Manhattan’s character. Times Square is like the beard on one of those guys from ZZ Top. Shave it off? TRAITOR! Besides, “Sharp Dressed Man” wouldn’t just hit the same.

Last week I was in New York staying on the periphery of Times Square. I was there to see a friend and catch a couple of musicals. Our hotel was within a short walk of the theatre district that impresses itself upon the blocks surrounding the square. But we were out of the way enough to be shielded from the ranks of Times Square jumbotrons that sprout like pixilated fauna straight out of an ayahuasca-laced version of Jumjani. It was a relief to look out of the window onto an alley instead of the giant electronic face of Ariana Grande hawking Wicked: For the Good panty liners.

Times Square, which is actually more of a bowtie configuration than a proper square, but why stop the dumbing down of America now?, sits in Midtown Manhattan. Today that puts it within striking distance of top tourist attractions like Central Park, Fifth Avenue, Rockefeller Center, The Museum of Modern Art, and any number of places voted Best Pizza in NYC. A lot of people pick hotels in that area for the proximity to the other sights that rank higher on the “must see” list than the Planet Hollywood restaurant.

But in the early-1900s Times Square was its own hot to trot destination. Clubs, restaurants, and theatres populated the area as well as big business. The New York Times moved their offices there in 1904, prompting the city to drop the designation Longacre Square for the name Times Square, thus inventing brand recognition. By the 1920s other businesses discovered the gift of vertical advertising in Times Square: over the course of the decade advertising increased from $25 to $85 million. In 2025 prices that works out to about 3 national elections. The Wrigley Spearmint Gum sign, thought to be the largest electronic sign in the world, cost $9,000 a month to rent. In 2025 NYC prices that is a one bedroom, basement flat in Bushwick, communal bathroom, utilities not included.

Unfortunately La Grande Depresh of the 1930s put Times Square on a path to what urban planners call “a majorly gross bummer.” Theatres shuttered. People moved uptown toward cheaper (at the time) neighborhoods. Burlesque halls, brothels, and seedy bars filled in the places left vacant by reputable establishments. Crime increased. You can bet the Wrigley people were no longer psyched to foot the bill for fancy advertising in such an unsavory part of the city.

Wow, they will hire anyone to be bike messengers! ©SheilaMoeschenPhotography

Zoom ahead to the mid-twentieth century–the 60s, 70s, 80s–and you literally would only be caught dead in Times Square. A Rolling Stone article in 1981 called it “the sleaziest block in America.” That says a lot coming from the publication that routinely devoted 1,200 words to the unspeakable things happening in the back of the Black Sabbath tour bus. X-rated movie theatres, peep show houses, drug culture, and a thriving sex work industry ruled over Times Square for a good part of the 1980s until Ed Koch, the acting mayor of New York City, began a slow urban and social rehabilitation campaign. This continued through Mayor David Dinkins’ tenure as well as into Mayor Rudy “The Living Gargoyle” Giuliani’s term. Under Giuliani’s direction Times Square was swept clean of the most illicit elements and reshaped into a more family friendly tourist experience, which also happened to coincide with being an enormous capitalism friendly experience!

NYC architecture is in its Dildo Era ©SheilaMoeschenPhotography

A short list of things you will encounter in Times Square today include: The ABC Times Square studios where Good Morning America is broadcast; Madame Tussauds Wax Museum; The M&M store as well as the Hershey’s store; The Yankee’s Clubhouse store; The Broadway Museum; movie theatres, restaurants such as the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company (based on the fictional company in Forest Gump); souvenir shops galore; high end retail shops such as The Disney Store and Sephora; hotels with rooftop bars and fast food joints and different types of themed tours. The square also exists in perpetual illumination from its bevy of electronic signs. In fact, Times Square is one of the only places in the city with its own zoning ordinance that requires building owners to display illuminated signage. I like to think the Wrigley gang are mottling somewhere going “We KNEW it! Dagnabbit, we knew it all along. Sigh.”

However, the real magic of Times Square unfolds in the pedestrian plaza. Shut to auto traffic, the pedestrian-only zone began as a pilot initiative in 2009 to basically see if human beings could handle moving through an urban space without the persistent threat of getting mowed down by a city bus. The results were mixed because bike messengers, but promising. It took about seven years to work out all the kinks, but this area of Times Square bumps. Here you’ll find performers, all kinds of food and merch vendors, art installations, places to sit and hang out, and some real top shelf weirdos.

For example, you might be walking along, your eyes adjusting to the neon red eating away at your retinas when you might hear the strains of a guitar over the sturm and drang of the square. That would be Robert Burck, the infamous singing Naked Cowboy (he’s got undies on, folks, CALM YOURSELF!). If you cruised through there about ten years ago you might have crossed paths with a “desnuda,” a topless female performer outfitted in a little bit of underwear and a ton of body paint. Her torso was made to look like the American flag so, go patriotism? And there is always everyone’s favorite group of pedestrian plaza regulars: the unlicensed costume characters that hang around in their dingy, ill-fitting, off-brand Elmo, Spider-Man, and SpongeBob suits cajoling you for a photo op. Over the years these folks have attracted a fair share of controversy. Google “fights with characters in Times Square” and you’ll be rewarded. The city has taken some measures to mitigate conflict. There are designated areas for these “performers” and as of 2016 you are required to tip for a photo–cash, not “Have you thought about taking a civil service exam?” Hey, everybody’s got a dream, right?

Times Square you are extra, as our youngest gen overlords say. You are also exactly what you were always meant to be–a corral for outlandishness, for spectacle, and for rampant consumerism. A city is an ecosystem. Everything has its place. Everything exists in funky harmony with everything else. That’s what makes cities special and confounding. People lament what they perceive as negative, but their wish often becomes regret reflected in the windows of boring, sanitized storefronts of poke bowl eateries and acupuncture places.

What would even exist if Times Square was photoshopped out of the city? Certainly nothing as iconic and brash and oddly endearing as what’s there currently. That ZZ Top guy keeps his beard for a reason. Why mess with messy perfection?

** Want MORE Times Square weirdness? (Yes is the correct response) Check out this fantastic piece by Anne Kadet over at Cafe Anne about someone who LIVES in Times Square!