To Really Fix Times Square, Make Broadway a Piazza
Two decades ago, when most of the pavement in Times Square was reserved for cars, I proposed converting the self-proclaimed Crossroads of the World into a pedestrian paradise named Piazza Broadway.
“New York was built for walking, yet instead of exploiting this advantage over other cities, it has banished pedestrians from most of the open space.”
The proposal seemed far-fetched at the time — it was greeted with thunderous silence — but I did my best to sell it. With cars banished, I predicted in 1997, Times Square would be transformed into “a great urban common like the ones at the hearts of European capitals.”
It hasn’t quite worked out that way.
Since the city finally turned Broadway into a plaza in 2009, I have yet to hear anyone compare it with Rome’s Piazza Navona or Prague’s Old Town Square.
It doesn’t remind you of Piccadilly Circus or Covent Garden. When you’re accosted by a cowboy in underpants or a topless woman in body paint and a headdress, it might evoke memories of Times Square’s “Midnight Cowboy” era and the signs promising “Live Nude Girls,” except that the peep shows have moved from indoor cubicles onto the sidewalk — not the kind of progress I had in mind.
There’s a better way.
The city’s proposed plan for the area, Times Square Commons, is a good start. Sections along the side would be kept clear for commuters and other pedestrians. In the center would be a “general civic zone,” with movable tables and chairs.
Orators and artists and musicians could ply their trades there, as long as they weren’t soliciting tips. Those looking for money would be confined to one or two “designated activity zones” on each block. If you wanted to pay someone for a photo, give money to a fake Buddhist monk or buy a CD or a ticket for a tour bus, that’s where you’d go.
Even within those zones, the entrepreneurs would be forbidden to set up tables or chairs, so you’d no longer have to navigate your way around sketch artists using the plaza as their private studio. A mayoral task force also recommended new restrictions on street vendors and a special police unit to enforce the rules.
We can do better...
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This piece originally appeared in New York Post