I always lament the timing of my annual pilgrimage to Sin City....when we leave New York, the weather is typically gorgeous, those elusive few days of fabulous, truly Spring weather, and by the time we return from a week in the desert, the city has turned into it's usual pea-soup like summer weather. How much more I'm going to lament missing out on this "I just need to get outside and soak this up!!!" weather now that New York City has implemented the new pedestrianized/cyclized Broadway!
Any New Yorker will tell you that she will go to great lengths to avoid stepping foot anywhere in the vicinity of Time's Square. Herald Square should also be avoided at all costs. Those areas are for misguided tourists and for the unfortunate, occasional business meetings that can't be gotten out of, and they are capable of sending the most even-keeled person (which I definitely am NOT) into a state of barely controllable rage. Until now....
Photo Courtesy of NYTimes.com
Yesterday saw a
different kind of Time's Square and Herald Square (and other swaths of Broadway!) with
tourists and Manhattanites alike pulling up lawn chairs to chill out in the middle of Broadway, thanks in large part to the work of Department of Transportation Director (and visionary, if you ask me) Janette Sadik-Khan and organizations such as
Transportation Alternatives. The
shutting down of parts of Broadway is just a trial for now, but if the figures work out the way they're supposed to and turning Broadway into a pedestrian/bike mall actually
cuts down on traffic, they're going to roll it out until the whole of Broadway is all public space. I realize that those of you who are from more sprawling locations might think that being able to sit on a rock on a shadeless strip of pavement is hardly something to celebrate, but anybody who has walked for over 15 minutes in search of even a stoop to sit on to eat your salad before finally settling on heading back to your tiny apartment or cramped office understands the value of reclaiming some of this big, bad, beautiful island. And if the throngs of people who immediately come out to enjoy any scrap of public space available to them is any indication, the entire city has been just
dying take a load off.
