Times Square, New York’s both celebrated and reviled storied heart has been shunned by city’s residents for decades, as if without even the slightest fight, they have ceded these 20 odd blocks between 40th and 50th streets where Broadway crosses 7th Avenue to the tourists. Times Square simply doesn't figure in most New Yorkers daily lives. After its incandescent 100-year run of explosive growth leading to the sordid 70’s, Times Square is simply no longer embraced as our city's beloved pulsing heart.
Yet the Waterford Crystal ball still drops here every New Years Eve. Broadway is booming. Roads have been shuttered to make way for smartly designed pedestrian plazas lauded by urban planners. Tourists flock her to partake in a spectacle that is still called New York. Monstrous advertisements tower over the milling crowds below. People dressed up as cartoon characters and superheroes stand around waiting to be asked to be part of someone else’s selfie. Locals cut through on their way to work. The area becomes a sea of smiles and frowns, of bright desires and daily disppointments, of a crashing of many different picture planes. This Crossroads of the World (one of Time Square’s titles) is unparalleled photographic fodder, one of the most stimulating, colorful pockets on the planet.
I have an 80 photograph monograph of this story and am looking for funding towards getting it published.
