Times Square. Where did that name originate?

In 1904 the New York Times lobbied to get the formerly "Longacre Square" renamed to Times Square after the NY Times building that was there. They celebrated the name change with a large New Year's Eve celebration — and a tradition was born.

 It's a unique place.

Exciting, colorful, happy things happen, and I'm sure there is also another side.

 For instance, I feel sad that grown men and women have to put on bizarre costumes and be photographed to earn a dollar. Some of them are downright nasty behind the masks.

I guess they forget that they have a voice under their disguise.

 

Then there is the guy who plays the guitar in his underwear, now joined by girls in skimpy bikinis and a guitar for a prop.

 This is the second trip that I have encountered a woman of advanced age attempting to do the same thing, bare breasted and in a bikini it's not a pretty sight. I was going to suggest she takes up quilting it might be a little warmer and indeed a little more dignified.

 

I love watching the delight on the faces of the tourists, like me who wonder at the spectacle of the lights, the signs and the milling passers by.

Young people pose for their own cameras, older ladies bring small pocket cameras out of their bags and capture the adventure and some folks have big cameras and try to catch the impossible. 

 

It never ends, like a circle it goes on day after day, year after year. The only thing that changes is the season.

 

Tonight I had dinner at the Olive Garden just behind the spectator stand. It's a very tired Olive Garden, a bit like an old food factory. But I enjoyed my eggplant parmigana and coffee. 

The building to the left of me reflects the lights and visual spectacle in reverse. The stock exchange stuff written in gold lights moves constantly like a train on speed and I have no idea what it means. I've been wanting to understand those secret figures for years.

Such is the adventure of visiting Times Square in New York.

 

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