the persistence of commodity over form: Times Square illuminations, 2015
Times Square has always preferred the ostentatious to the nostalgic. By the 1890s it had already been nicknamed the ‘Great White Way’ due to its early adoption of electric street lighting. When vulgar spectaculars were banned in districts concerned with tasteful streetscapes, Times Square welcomed illuminated signs with fervour. When economic decline pushed old businesses out of the district, theatres survived by showing porn films, replacing old marquees and ads with x-rated movie promotions and dancing silhouettes. With the arrival of the corporate financiers that upended the district in the 1990s, Times Square acquiesced, exchanging its seedy shops and streetscape for Disney musicals and chain restaurants. With each transformation, the bright signs of Times Square continue to attract. The district’s unifying element through decades of change has been twofold: culturally, it has adapted without losing its iconic peculiarity and distinction from the neighbourhoods that abut it; typologically, Times Square’s identity is not wed to its architecture and history as much as to the bustle of entertainment and the signs that promote it. Times Square’s very existence hinges on its disregard for its past, and its iconic identity thrives because of that, not in spite of it. Times Square is still changing. In 2009, the four- lane stretch of Broadway that passes through it was converted to a pedestrian plaza; instead of honking taxi cabs, visitors sit in chairs and benches. The signs continue to evolve. John Portman’s 1986 Marriott Marquis Tower recently replaced the former collage of smaller signs on its facade with one massive LED screen, as wide as a football field and six stories high. In both its transformation and its preservation, Times Square has become a paradoxical icon of ephemeral newness. Its adaptability to new technologies and expectations has propelled it to evolve, but also reinforced its role as a shameless and immersive promoter of commercialism, entertainment and advertising. People visit Times Square not for its architectural character, but for the dazzling writing and pictures that hang off the glass and stone façades, re-compose the urban space and relegate buildings to mere scaffolds. Times Square changes, Times Square remains the same. f
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Lane Rick
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