Us Against the World

Hating on Times Square is a well-loved pastime of the residents of New York City I know, and it complements the less common but not all so rare pastime of defending that very place from its detractors, and even praising it.

I’ve always been one of the defenders. The sheer spectacle! The throngs of people. The people watching. The history - peep shows, sex shows, at a time, very gay. At a time, very artistic. Now, strip clubs, theaters, fast food, plays. Stocks. What a place.

You are very anonymous but not in a bad way. You can walk by someone you know, and even if you are the type to always stop an acquaintance and put in a word or two, which I am not, even then, sometimes you might have trouble, whisked along your way before you’d even recognized that old face, the face of one who may have come from anywhere, because the place seems to be a magnet for all sorts of people who live in the city, or do not, or are going to live there, or who have grown up going since they were young and yet still go and might leave the city soon and still be going to Times Square, probably to see plays in that case. This has happened to me, this run-in never to be, it was a good feeling, mostly of mystery. Why are they, here?

I love Times Square because it asks you to walk through it, and even if you try your best to avoid it, sometimes you cannot, and then you’ll be walking through the place, and then what will happen is that it brings things out of you. You are not allowed to have a boring conversation there. It’s too busy, too much effort to speak, what you do end up saying is always worth it. And it seems a safe place to say those things, too, because you’re surrounded by tourists and street vendors and degeneracy and broadway and so much happening that I think you could admit the most terrible thing and keep walking as if nothing has happened because there’s so much proof around you that life simply can just keep going on, that maybe it will. The crowds, the light, the noise, instantly make you a team with your companions. Even if you do not speak you are then something together. Several times I’ve walked through Times Square with a friend and had unexpected and sincere conversations about love - about how really wonderful a relationship is, or about all of the fault lines in it, or about a high school boy remembered under the glow of the advertisements, or about friendship, and what it is, and how to have it with your lover, and if that’s something you’d even want.

Walking through Times Square alone this evening I thought about the detractors and what they wanted to do with the place. Get rid of it? Sure, it could be done. Maybe we could route all of the tourists to the MOMA’s exceptionally large, empty courtyard. Or send them over to a couple of purpose-built rooftop beer and wine establishments on the West Side Highway. Even better - let’s build up the restaurants over on 9th, up to the 3rd, 4th floors. Buy out the renters. And just do the plays right there in the restaurants, maybe on top of the bar, or in space carved out in the middle. Just start the famed plays right after dinner has been eaten. This would eliminate much scurrying.

There’s a hideousness in our industries that’s easily ignored and can’t be missed on 42nd and 7th. Take fast fashion: pollution, waste, bodily propaganda. But if you missed the garishness, at your last trip to Old Navy, you can’t but see it in Time Square, where teen models look down from their massive, glowing thrones, and gesture towards the several story glass paradise, full of would-be customers standing around, taking selfies. Good luck finding a changing room. I love Old Navy, or I used to when was in school, but that's besides the point, in Times Square, the garishness of the square is the point, and everyone gets it, though most don’t mind. The logic might go - Times Square is hideous, so must be consumerism. At parties in Manhattan, you are asked how much you make, or how much you pay in rent, though rarely in so many words. To certain Manhattanites, the blight of Tmies Square is very much desivered. It's a good reminder to keep around.

Perhaps only America could produce such a place, and only in such a place can America see itself. Elements of our national subconscious erupt there in sublime display. Greed and lust and sentimentality. And it’s a monument to our economy, its main space adorned with the holy trinity of finance, big business, and the military, which, fittingly, has a recruiting center right in the middle of things. Very on-the-nose of them. And down the road, people who need to wait in line for cheap broadway tickets, do. How egalitarian. It’s probably raining.

This political angle is fun but not at all connected to my actual experience - all fondness - of the place, which I probably first came to know about because of the ball drop. Or maybe it was in a little pocket trinket a friend of my parents brought back from a visit. A tourist knickknack, a book you could pop open, and see the Statue of Liberty, and the Empire State Building, and more. I imagine most people remember the first time that they came to this the place. I don’t remember when my first time was, but I do remember thinking, ah, so this is Times Square, and also that it was after I moved here as an adult and not in the many times I’d visited as a child. Though come to think of it, I did see a Broadway play, maybe when I was eight or so, a musical. I could have seen Times Square. Maybe we avoided it. But I don’t usually do that these days.

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October 13th, 2025

New York, New York