When I lived in the nyc suburbs in the late 80s and early 90s, my parents occasionally took us to a classical concert or a musical I was too young to appreciate and what I remember was those flashy signs I was too young to understand. But I remember and understood the electronic stores that were always “going out of business”.
I like to keep it at 1.25, it sounds more natural. At 1.5 speed, she sounds like one of those as seen on tv ads when they describe side effects and warnings and stuff.
Before I even read this comment, I changed the playback speed to 1.5x! She speaks SO slowly. I get that enunciating and clarity are important, but it was almost hard to pay attention at that speed lol
@@johnnysalami27 personally I have ADHD and my mind will wonder while I wait for the speaker to catch up after I've guessed what they are going to say or at least have an idea. Then I forget to tune back in. It's automatic and I don't mean to do it. Fast talkers are actually really realaxing to me because it keeps me enhanced without having to make a conscious effort. Different people have different reasons but that's mine.
Times Square was like that in his time too, billboards, and a programmable light board that showed the then equivalent to modern graphics. I think the big shock was realizing that he is alive and its been many years since he last saw the place, I mean it was close to 70 years earlier.
Nick Fury: At ease, soldier! Look, I'm sorry about that little show back there, but we thought it best to break it to you slowly. Steve Rogers: Break what? Nick Fury: You've been asleep, Cap. For almost 70 years. [Steve is silent with shock] Nick Fury: You gonna be okay? Steve Rogers: Yeah. Yeah, I just... I had a date.
I don't know when this video was made, but I was there 2 days ago and it is packed! maybe not back to normal, but most definitely not like the video showed. I would go as far as to say that maybe 70% back
I had heard of the Naked Cowboy when I was younger, but I don’t remember all of those characters being around until like 2009. Spiderman chased my family down after taking a picture with him.
Times Square should be see as one of those places where just go to see the spectacle and get out... drunk costume wearers, overpriced and bland food, tourist trap museums, all that shove aside
@@FranciscoPerez-nr3vr But my point is that there is really nothing to see. You have the classic picture as seen in the thumbnail but that is about it.
Honestly, driving and walking around the "hood" and other areas of New York sounds funner. Really makes me take in what living in New York feels like and learning about the common Yankee life
@@eggs2627 you absolutely do not want to walk around brooklyn hoods. If you're not from there don't go there; some people really take that motto seriously and if you look and sound like a mark you'll be tested.
This infomercial on Times Square leaves out the fact that New York City became one of the most expensive cities in the United States as Mayor Giuliani almost doubled the city's real estate taxes in eight years. Real estate developers had a field day. One, Harry Macklowe, illegally demolished a building near Times Square without shutting off the gas and electricity. Nothing happened to him, his company just paid a fine. Those sleazy movie theaters were on the way out, thanks to X-rated VHS tapes available everywhere. Criminals still stole airbags, car bumpers and cars while the police the NYPD went after double parkers and people driving 35 mph where the speed limit was 30 mph. The NYPD had patrol cars staked out on Queens Blvd. in the weeks before the 9/11 attack and ignored warnings about terrorists scoping out government bukdings in downtown Manhattan. Now classic 42nd Street theaters like the Selwyn were gutted and the Morosco and two other nearby Broadway theaters were torn down to make way for a high rise Marriott Hotel. Landmark buildings gone, replaced by Mickey Mouse.
I was there a few years back. Walked all around the area looking for the “square”. The next day someone corrected my understanding, so I had to go back to appreciate the actual sense of place.
I initially did the same. I walked down from central park and did not realize I had passed the square. Had to look up on the phone gps. If nothing is going on holiday wise it just looks like more of the same.
I like tourist traps. Everyone is so down on them but there's always people there. I always try to get a t-shirt as a memento from somewhere fun wherever we go on vacation.
Exactly, I feel like tourist traps primarily only drive in people who are bad with money in the first place. If you stick to a budget then you don't have to worry about something being a tourist trap or not.
For some people that's what they want and I have no issue with it. I just find it less interesting to go to a new place and be bombarded with businesses ect that are the same as the place I am from.
"Bloomingdale Road" ≈ Wickquasgeck Trail Wikipedia: Broadway was originally the Wickquasgeck trail, carved into the brush of Manhattan by its Native American inhabitants. This trail originally snaked through swamps and rocks along the length of Manhattan Island.
Tourist trap? If Times Square is a tourist trap, why do so many tourists easily escape the area? Seriously though, in almost any other city in the US, a Times Square like area, as it is now, would go a long way in defining that city. But the thing about Manhattan is that it’s saturated with tourist attractions/places of interests both high and low brow and everything in between. If you visit NYC, for the first time, you’ll be surprised, maybe even shocked, by how different one “touristy” area can be from the next. So while Times Square may have been “Disneyfied,” Disneyfication hasn’t come close to defining the city. This is even more the case if you include the other four boroughs, though Staten Island, not so much (sorry S.I. you’re just too isolated and quite frankly, a lot of you don’t even liked to be lumped in with the rest of us). Depending on how you define “tourist trap,” I would argue that Times Square didn’t become a tourist trap because it was always a tourist trap. What get’s lost when the history of Times Square in the late 60s to the early 90s is explored is that it wasn’t just porn theaters, peep shows hookers and pimps. There were a lot of big screen movie houses in the area that showed first run films (I first saw Star Wars and ALIEN there when they came out, as well as other big films. There were also a couple of big video game arcades, and then of course, there’s all the playhouses. You can argue that the playhouse are not touristy but the larger point is that the area as a whole was always a tourist destination. I think it’s more accurate to think of the area as Vegas-y without the gambling than as Disneyfied. And really, Times Square was always going to become what it has become and I’m fine with that because as stated above, it’s just one of several tourist destinations in NYC, it just so happens to be the tackiest and that’s fine too. PS. There is no single best pizza in NYC, but if you do visit, whatever you do, stay away from any pizzeria that has any variation of “Ray” in the name, because those mostly, though not always, suck. And for fucks sake, don’t come to NYC and eat national chain pizza. Also, Chicago style pizza may be awesome, I even like it on occasion, but who are you kidding? That shit’s a fucking casserole.
Chicago Deep Dish is one of those tourist things. Chicagoans don't actually really eat it hardly ever. Maybe on a fun occasion like a graduation or birthday you'll go to Giordano's, Pizzeria Uno, or Pequod's but it's not usual. I'd say real Chicago pizza is Home Run Inn, La Villa, Aurelio's, and other similar shops. Tavern style thin crust pizza. It is traditional here to cut it in small squares. If you don't want to look like a tourist, you'll get that and avoid the deep dish.
@@KennyChesty chicago deep dish is also a suburbs thing. In the suburbs we have a ton of pizza places and while there are some that serve thin or deep dish there are many that serve both. The other thing is that while NY, St.Louis, Chicago thin pizza styles can be made quick deep dish cant so most of the pizza consuming is gonna be thin because people dont wanna wait 30 min for a pizza.
Thank you for acknowledging Mayor Dinkins in this! His development initiatives and plans to increase policing helped set the ball in motion for transforming NYC, but Mayor Giuliani gets all the credit because he actually had time to bring everything to fruition.
Now my brain goes back to TV shows like Green Acres that mention Times Square (the one from the 1930s-1980s) as a positive for staying in NYC. Really curious why it was thrown in the theme song now.... and mentioned by Mrs. Douglas
I want to go there just to look at it. Just to say I've been there. I don't plan to spend any more than $100 there (which is for food and maybe a souvenir)
@@cheddar *No... It's not.* Disney's arrival just changed one whore for another. The area is just as slimy and skeezy as it was before, only now it's money whores instead of sex whores. At least with sex workers, you are well aware of the downside of taking part in their business.
You don’t need to spend more than $5.50 for a subway ride there and back. But do it at least once. It might be a tourist trap, but it’s still a bucket list item. 😊
It's amusing that I think of Times Square as this wondrous place, when I used to live a skip away from San Francisco and drove over the Golden Gate Bridge a thousand times. It's so mundane to me. New Yorkers probably feel similarly about Times Square
Fun fact: the original Times Square Subway station was recently obliterated when they upgraded the Times Square Shuttle station. The original subway ran from City Hall to Grand Central, then went across town to Times Square and up to Harlem under Broadway. When the lines were built uptown on Lexington and downtown on Broadway, they cut the crosstown rail connections and put in the Shuttle, though there was still a way to move trains out of there that involve dismantling a bridge over the northernmost track.
So was Dick Clark's new years rocking eve held in TS back when it was a red light district? Welcome to new years rocking eve live from the red light district in New York!
When I was at NYU years ago, I remember the mayor saying he wanted to clean up Times Square and tho that same guy is now an international joke with zero honor he did change it, but I’m not sure it was a great idea in hindsight. It may have been ugly and full of strip shows, but at least it had character which it definitely doesn’t now. Times Square is now just advertising billboards on steroids and larger versions of the same shops you find in every depressing generic strip mall in the US. It’s one saving grace is that many of the best theaters are close to it, I’m not sure that’s enough to warrant a second visit though.
It didn’t have character then and it doesn’t have character now. Before it was just sex shops and crime - you can see naked women all over the internet now and crime is not desirable.
@@lilybaker732 Yeah, those businesses would have gone broke a decade later on their own. People also forget that New York is home to the UN and international consulates, Wall Street, etc and it was always going to be cleaned up. The NYPD is one of the world's largest armies and has anti-aircraft guns, there's secret service and feds everywhere, and mass surveillance. The cultural and socioeconomic direction the city is going is inevitable. The world was less connected in the 70s and 80s, and with it changing ever since, NYC became a meeting point rather then just a melting pot, so it's expected to be clean. Even the organic culture has morphed into consumerism, and its inevitable that certain people are going to be priced out and others are going to come in.
the only reason i tried to go to times square every few years was to take photos of how it's evolved. i sadly wish i still had my photos before that m&m building. oh and before disney showed up too.
It’s so funny that this video appeared in my feed; I was in NYC less than a week ago and actually asked my travel partners, “How did Times Square get to be like this?” I guess Cheddar has the answer!
She makes it sound like NYC is still as clean and safe it was in the 2000's. Times Square area is getting bad again! Not the same as it was in 1995-2010.
I’m a native New Yorker. One time I was showing a friend around the city and I explained, “We need to transfer subway stops at Times Square.” She said, “If we’re going to be in Times Square, then let’s just eat dinner there.” 🤦♀️ I had some further explaining to do. You transfer trains but you do NOT go above ground. Lol
As a kid who grew up in NYC in 70’s -90’s, Time Square was NOT dangerous if you knew how to act, simply because of the Thousands of ‘foolish’ tourists. And because of Broadway and Film theaters and. Playland, my family Would go to Times Square.. Real New Yorkers are Tough!
I grew up with the old Times Square. I saw the beginnings of Disnifcation and I didn't like it much. Times Square might have been cleaned up but it has lost its character. When visiting Times Square I don't want to see a theme park but that what exists. I just avoid the location.
I watched this because I enjoy history and I actually have been to Times Square but as a middle-aged introvert, there is nothing about Times Square that attracts me now. But great video!
This is more of the history of Times Square than explaining why it is a supposed "tourist trap". I first went there in the 70's and it was a must see for all of the billboards and TKTS. I don't think that makes it a tourist trap. JMO
Times Square is my least favorite part of Manhattan. I avoid it as much as possible. They really need to restrict the costumed characters begging for money. It's annoying, nothing fun about it. How many Elmo's do we need? The only time I enjoy Times Square is during a blizzard. The bright lights reflecting off if the falling snow is pretty cool, plus hardly anyone is out. I used to work two blocks north of TS. it's congested with people who don't know where they are going and full of touristy kitsch. As bad as it was before it got cleaned up, I actually think I preferred it before.
There's a reason why I, and most other New Yorkers don't set foot above ground there. I've lived within 10 blocks of it for 3 years but haven't been above ground there since 2017.
Say what you may... But David and Rudy played a huge part in the clean up of NYC. Let's hope history can repeat itself and we elect a great mayor that can reclaim NYC as one of the safest cities in America.
There’s a difference between a glitzy superficial tourist area and a tourist trap where you’re being conned and scammed. Times Square falls more into the former category.
I’m a native New Yorker and I do love theater. Any time I have Broadway show tickets, there is that irony of: gotta go to Times Square. Literally no choice. Haha. I’m guessing people who work in the theater industry deal with that irony in a daily basis. Lol
Times Square was deserted to the bone due to COVID-19. Some of NYC's saddest days during establishment. It is supposed to be the city that never sleeps. Without the virus, it would've been the world's most vigilant.
You missed a key part....Zoning not banning sex businesses cleaned up Time Square. Zoning laws required all sex businesses needed to be 100 yards apart. The court rejected outright bans on sex businesses but the city did have the right to zone different types of businesses in the area. Then Disney opened up the Disney Store in Times Square. Disney changed the reputation of Times Square.
Sadly, tourists do not prepare that much because Timesquare is the dream of journey lol. When I think about Timesquare I think about how many movies it appear and the dream of travelers lol
So it went from being embarrassing to being boring and fake. And natives preferred it when it was embarrassing?! It's a great place to people watch and wander. If you want something to be ashamed about, it's your airports. JFK? What a dump! And the ride in to Manhattan is an eyesore!
Over. Freakin. Rated. Place. Crossroads of the World. Pleaaaaaaez. (Originally posted this 2 year ago, but I guess it got deleted. Oh, well. I still stand by it today)
It was far better, freer, funnier, exciting and representative of what NY is all about when it was a sex and vice hub. In true NY fashion, the so-called solution began with a politician doling out extorted taxes to a corporation…
Pause the video at 3:19 and look at the headlines. Thursday, October 24, 1929 must have been one sad day. There's multiple major disasters on the front page.
The reason why the porn shops went away was the invention of the computer and the internet. This sleaze moved from times square to your living room. Why go to that place when you can get all you want on line. AND it was the porn dealers who perfected secure transfer of money across the internet. The had to get paid for what they offered. PS My firewall is very robust and none of that stuff can get into our network : )