Times Square

I often walk through Times Square , where the Incompetent Bomber parked his 1993 Nissan Pathfinder last Saturday with the alarm clocks wired to the M88 firecrackers in the canister between the five-gallon gasoline containers and the three propane tanks and bags of nonexplosive fertilizer, and so I take a personal interest in the case. I'm fond of Times Square, which is an out-of-body experience offered for free to the general public, the colossal flash and razzmatazz of 10-story LED hi-def imagery rolling and bouncing among the JumboTrons and billboards in the glass canyons above the statue of Father Duffy by the TKTS booth.

Some people in politics seem unable to accept good news. Take, for example, how House Minority Leader John Boehner greeted the arrest of the man accused of the Times Square car bombing plot. After Faisal Shahzad had been seized only 53 hours after the plot was thwarted, Mr. Boehner observed: "We have been lucky, but luck is not an effective strategy for fighting terrorism." He added that the Obama administration "continues to operate without a real, comprehensive plan to confront and defeat the terrorist threat."

News from the North: Times Square in New York has been saved. That is, saved from the plan to save it by obliteration and replacement. What is left is Times Square, the show and tourism center of Gotham, long since gone more squalid and sometimes-scary than Baltimore's Block after midnight.The plan was to save Times Square from its decades-long descent by an office redevelopment so massive that sleaze would be priced out. This project -- four massive towers, a trade mart, a hotel and renovation of historic run-down theaters -- was announced by city and state in 1981.

I often walk through Times Square , where the Incompetent Bomber parked his 1993 Nissan Pathfinder last Saturday with the alarm clocks wired to the M88 firecrackers in the canister between the five-gallon gasoline containers and the three propane tanks and bags of nonexplosive fertilizer, and so I take a personal interest in the case. I'm fond of Times Square, which is an out-of-body experience offered for free to the general public, the colossal flash and razzmatazz of 10-story LED hi-def imagery rolling and bouncing among the JumboTrons and billboards in the glass canyons above the statue of Father Duffy by the TKTS booth.

New York. -- Can Times Square, Ground Zero of Urban America, stage a comeback from a 30-year assault of porn shops, theater closings, pickpockets, con men, and pervasive physical decay?The two-year-old Times Square Business Improvement District has taken on what might seem like Mission Impossible -- to make the Great White Way, once again, a place that is ''clean, safe and friendly.''Early reports are positive. Purse snatching and pickpocketing plunged 43 percent in 1992, the new program's first full year of operation.

NEW YORK -- According to the old show tune, there's a broken heart for every light on Broadway.Shortly after midnight tomorrow, 1,500 new lights will appear there, reflecting not just broken hearts but lives cut short.The new year will see the initiation of the Gun Fighters Deathclock, a three-story, red-white-and-blue, neon-edged billboard high above 47th Street in Times Square. The digital clock will offer an up-to-the-second tally of the number of guns in circulation in the United States, and the people who die because of them.

NEW YORK -- Since becoming famous 100 years ago as the heart of Broadway shows, Times Square has had a spectacular career that ended in failure. Now it's working on a second.In playing the role of the city's pulse over the first half of this century, Times Square was the glitziest, most frantic intersection in the world's most famous city.But by the 1950s, this role was failing, and Times Square began to deteriorate quickly -- even faster than the city itself.As television and the suburbs sucked away the audiences from its rows of theaters, porno flicks took over and crime ruled the streets.

NEW YORK - Pedestrians hurrying over a grate in the triangular median where Broadway and Seventh Avenue converge in Times Square, just south of 46th Street, rarely seem to notice anything out of the ordinary. But Max Neuhaus hopes that, subliminally, their lives are being changed. Neuhaus is a sound artist, a trained musician and a former famous percussionist who now shapes what he calls intangible sound in space, rather than the tangible sound of a composer working in time. "Times Square" is, if not necessarily his masterpiece, then at least his only work still up and running in the United States.

NEW YORK -- The Hotel Macklowe, the site of several forthcoming New York designer shows, is negotiating with Sony to have the fashion shows televised live on the giant video screen in Times Square.(A great idea for traffic safety. Can you just see it? Cabbies ramming into each other. Bicycle messengers going head over handlebars. Sidewalk preachers hypnotized by 10-foot-tall models in miniskirts.)Michael Kors, Bob Mackie, Mary McFadden, Steven Stolman and Joan Vass are among the designers planning to hold shows at the Macklowe in November.

In what New York City officials are calling a first, the city police department and Mayor's Film Office have paved the way for Columbia Pictures' big-budget "Money Train" to shoot in Times Square on New Year's Eve.Approximately 300 extras will be joining the 300,000-plus throng of revelers and multitude of news and broadcast crews expected tomorrow night at one of the world's most celebrated NewYear's Eve gatherings.The shoot won't involve the film's stars, Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson, but will capture footage for a key chase sequence at the end of the film when Mr. Snipes, a good-guy decoy cop, chases his adversaries on a motorcycle.

Investigators are still sifting through the evidence left behind by Saturday's would-be car bomber, whose explosives-packed Nissan Pathfinder was discovered in New York's Times Square just as evening theater-goers converged on the district. Though the bomber's identity remains unknown, one thing is already clear: Whoever planned the attack intended to do grievous harm. Had the explosives detonated, the crude device might have killed or injured scores of innocent bystanders, and possibly many more.

DENNIS STOCK, 81 Photographed famous James Dean portrait Dennis Stock, a photographer best known for his iconic Life magazine photo of film legend James Dean walking through a rainy Times Square in a dark overcoat, died Monday night of complications from pneumonia and cancer in Sarasota, Fla. "His singular most iconic image would definitely be his James Dean walking down Times Square with a cigarette in his mouth, because James Dean...

It was nearly noon, not midnight, and the ball that hung three stories high looked more like a cross between a pinata and a helium balloon than the giant one in Times Square that grown-ups have come to know and love. But to a crowd of more than 1,900 - many sporting tutus, face glitter and brightly colored party hats - the setting at the Maryland Science Center could not have been more perfect for ringing in the New Year, kid-style. It was the second annual Midnight Noon, a bash the museum calls a New Year's celebration for those whose bedtime happens long before the ball in Times Square makes its descent, and all the right people were excited.

It was nearly noon, not midnight, and the ball that hung three stories high looked more like a cross between a pinata and a helium balloon than the giant one in Times Square that grown-ups have come to know and love. But to a crowd of more than 1,900 - many sporting tutus, face glitter and brightly colored party hats - the setting at the Maryland Science Center could not have been more perfect for ringing in the New Year, kid-style. It was the second annual Midnight Noon, a bash the museum calls a New Year's celebration for those whose bedtime happens long before the ball in Times Square makes its descent, and all the right people were excited.

Clintons to join Bloomberg in ringing in the new year Tonight, Sen. Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton will be in Times Square, helping New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg lower the glittery New Year's Eve ball. The Clintons will lead hundreds of thousands of revelers in the final 60-second countdown and push the ceremonial button that lowers the ball. Up to a million people are expected tonight to wait for the clock to strike midnight, with the forecast calling for snow and temperatures in the low 30s. Portions of the event will be televised live on ABC and other networks.

My nomination for a new Christmas perennial: What Would Jesus Buy? President Bush says the terrorists will win if we stop shopping. This documentary says humanity loses if we keep hocking our future possibilities to purchase goods and services. What Would Jesus Buy? crackles with the humorous effrontery of its subject, performance artist Bill Talen. In his guise as Reverend Billy, the bleached-blond leader of the Church of Stop Shopping, he preaches against the forces of American consumerism with a grass-roots theatrical esprit.

NEW YORK -- One of Manhattan's most famous and financially troubled landmarks, 1 Times Square Plaza, the triangular building renowned for its electronic "zipper" of news headlines and for dropping the ceremonial ball on New Year's Eve, has filed for bankruptcy protection.The 41 tenants in the 22-story building are not expected to be affected immediately by the filing. The vacancy rate is 50 percent.A lawyer for the owners, C. Albert Parente, said Friday that difficulties in obtaining money to modernize the building and a drop in billboard advertising led to the filing.

Recently, I had the pleasure of touring New York City with 150 middle-schoolers and their instruments. Every spring, the band and orchestra kids travel to another city where they spend 30 minutes performing in front of judges, 10 hours in a nearby amusement park, two nights not sleeping in a motel and 24 hours yakking on a luxury bus. The trip is a recruiting tool for the music program, and it is how parents get their kids to practice. This year's destination was New York City, a decision celebrated by parent chaperones, who are not amused by amusement parks.

Dick Clark, Ryan Seacrest and the rest of the people hollering, smiling, dancing and kissing on New Year's Eve in Times Square are liars. Unless you have a V.I.P. badge around your neck, the experience is nothing like it appears on TV. Misery is a word that comes to mind. You stand in below-freezing temperatures for more than seven hours with no access to bathrooms, rations or chairs. And, more likely than not, confetti will never cascade onto your head. For those not deterred - who want nothing more than to say they've been there, done that - here are "The 10 Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Paid $5 to Stand in an Hourlong Line to Use the Bathroom at Tad's Broiled Steaks in Times Square."