First of all, you do not have to be in your 70s to remember Times Square in the 60s. I was born and raised in New York. I remember that area as a small child when going to the Port Authority to visit family in NJ or attending Broadway shows and eating in restaurants afterwards. So let’s not get ‘age-ist’ as well as using other insults.
Guiliani was very successful in removing crime. But in the process, he remade a Times Square that once had a logical architectural structure suited to our fair city and changed it into a Tokyo that would have intimidated Godzilla. Gone were so many local shops that were replaced by bland chain stores that do not serve the ordinary New Yorkers who live and work in the area once the tourists go home. Small restaurants were replaced by awful national chains like Olive Garden, Ruby Foo’s and others that gave tourists nothing but the same kind of experience they could have in a strip mall. (I said all this in my original post, btw.)
Bloomberg making a pedestrian mall - as if this city is designed like Florence or Rome - was another disaster. I doubt it’s stopped air pollution; in fact, with all the stalled traffic emitting noxious emissions, I’m sure it’s worse than when NYC was coal-fueled. Not to mention the aggravation added to the lives of people travelling to shows (working in shows!) and making their way to the Port Authority and Penn Station after a hard day at work.
DeBlasio (I guess it was him) allowing half naked women and that foolish Naked Cowboy so dear to the hearts of ladies from Alabama to roam the pedestrian plaza further turned Times Square back into the Midnight Cowboy era we all got fed up with in the 70s. Leaving a friend’s show last Saturday night and forcing our way through TS was like living in a Hieronymous Bosch vivant tableau.
If that’s what you like, you’ve got it. I don’t. But I suspect you will win the argument with the authorities and city planners and I won’t.
The removal of small businesses and their replacement by chains isn’t just happening in Times Square but all over Manhattan, indeed, all over America. Sorry, but you can’t pin that on Giuliani. All I know is that Times Square is safe and, for the most part, family friendly. As for the bosomy painted ladies, they are now in a restricted space, as are as well the grabby Elmos. BTW, Giuliani is also not responsible for them. Yes, I like Times Square a hell of a lot more than I did in the 80s. Bryant Park is world class; Port Authority much improved; no broken glass, used needles or used condoms on 42nd Street.