In the beginning there was Broadway…Slashing down across manhattan, KING OF STREETS!
Looking down 42nd street to the West
You can look straight up and barley see the top
Logos are everywhere, everything is owned by somebody and somebody wants everybody to know it
Even the trash cans are advertising something… and on this one rests a tired bike messenger waiting for his turn to go
TOURISTS… look at them swarm!
Old signs in this area are like gems, peeking out and around the digital logo orgy that time square has become… neon is simpler, more graceful, and causes less caesuras
Remember when there was a 9 train?
Only in times square could McDonalds get away with this… was this ever really what was intended?
One last look down 42 from the steps of the New Victory theater… see how the street folds up and out in all directions
Construction on 8th ave… someone must have sold their air space to create this orange giant
Some things will never change though. A classy reminder of old New York on 8th ave
The majestic Majestic theater is dwarfed by the skyscraper that shoulders it, but what it lacks in height, it makes up for in style
Cutting through Shubert Alley between two impossibly high buildings, this alley is always in the shadows
On 45th street low theaters squat next to tall cement monstrosities. The glass office building a few blocks uptown puts both 45th st buildings to shame.
9th ave, a whole different world from times square. It’s a New York Neighborhood
MMMMMMMM… Restaurant Row YUM!
A solid towering granite building on 46th st… nothing, and I mean nothing happens without these guys!
Unfortunately it is at this point that my camera decided to break down and have some sort of electronic midlife crisis. For this I apologize.
I can visually confirm however that as one heads further East one heads further and further towards imposing office buildings with Starbucks and overpriced Europa style sandwich joints on the ground floors. Back south on 7th ave the theaters are again in full swing presenting everything from classic theater to the musical adaptations of movies-that-weren’t-that-good-t-begin-with-but-will-sell-to-these-silly-tourists-for-100-dollars-a-pop.
At the end of our tour, the ‘cross-roads of the world’ I am struck not so much by a sense of awe and grandeur, rather by the idea that this is in fact the crossroads of Disney and Chase. But hey… the tourists seem to love it!