Greetings once again from Times Square.  Dedicated CF readers will recall that since issue three I have been writing about the transformation taking place in midtown and the theater district.  Well,  there's still more to tell but, admittedly, it is, to a degree, simply more of the same.  I hate to be redundant but ... shit, I am an observer of culture and unfortunately for all, it is the culture itself that has become redundant.  Details differ here and there, new symptoms are discovered but ... hey, what can I say, it's not like I make this shit up.  Luckily for me, this is likely to be the last Times Square report for quite awhile since, in four days I leave it, and my shitty job behind as I begin my fabulous new career.

    To recap: when we last left off, huge entertainment holding companies like Time-Warner, Disney, and Virgin Atlantic had gutted and rebuilt New York City's infamous scum center (Times Square), shrink-wrapped it and made it all shiny so that it might befit their glorious megastores.  Manhattan, like its parent company America, is beginning to appear and function more like a theme park than a real ... place.

    The other day I walked up to 57th St. in a failed attempt to visit the new "Nike Town" megastore.  Alas I knew not that it was still under construction.  Hopefully by the time we (or should I say "we") go to print, I shall have some news on that nightmare.  [Y'know, recently at a family dinner I talked with a cousin whom I had not seen in about ten years.  It turns out he used to work for Reebok in South America.  He told me "You figure those sneakers gotta have like a hundred percent markup right?  No, try a thousand percent.  Those shoes they're selling for $120 cost them a dollar to make."  Well Holy Christ and Rock 'n' Roll].  No luck with Nike, I checked out the partially opened, new Warner Bros. store across the street but there ain't much to tell:  Elmer Fudd et al in every size, printed on every salable product imaginable.  I imagine the Disney Store (actually stores — there are at least two of them) is the same deal.

    But on to today's discussion.  So far we've been talkin' retail stores, chains, and theme restaurants.  [By the way, Culture Freak welcomes reviews of the theme restaurant in your town]. But the construction theme for the last month or so in midtown has been media.  The keyword is screens.

    Around June of 1996, the well-known TV screen at Times Square [there was only one of them at this time, now there are many, Ed. 2001], which for years broadcast news and commercial spots, simply vanished.  At first I assumed that it was just going to be replaced with something bigger, or perhaps with a higher resolution.  But, time went by and still present is that blank spot among the hordes of signage.  I later heard an unsubstantiated rumor that it had been removed because it was causing too many traffic accidents (remember kids, viewing and driving don't mix ... yet). [Update January, 1997— the aforementioned TV was finally replaced, thanks to NBC, though the new unit does not differ significantly from its predecessor].

   Eventually, however, the ITT computer screen appeared.  Approximately the same size as the aforementioned TV screen, and located on the same building (but about 100 feet higher), this thing has that CD Rom, smooth, cartoony, quicktime look to it.  That is, it looks more like a web site than a TV if you know what I mean (a sign of television's eminent demise due to the rise of the PC?).  It's a pretty freaky sight, in part because it looks more like the billboards in Blade Runner than anything I've ever seen before.  Well, it doesn't exactly look like the Blade Runner screens — the resolution is much better of course for one thing — but it has the same feel.  Remember how abstract the images on those Blade Runner screens were? —asian women blowing kisses at you, not explicitly selling any one particular product (exept the occasional Coca-Cola if I remember correctly), but just kind of feeding images to the public?  Well, the ITT board is creepy in just the same way.  75% of the images are that of corporate logos spinning around in cyberspace.  Some of them are very recognizeable,  "ITT" for instance.  Others ... I can't help but wonder if they really represent some transnational corporation, or if they are just random icons and symbols strategically placed to frighten and confuse me.

    The other 25% is dedicated to letting us know in no uncertain terms just how much power and capital ITT has.  We are presented with delightful trivia questions such as "How many hotels and subidiaries does ITTSheraton own?  400 and counting!" immediately followed by "What company will celebrate its 60th anniversary next year?  ITT-Sheraton!"  ITT then goes on to list their subsidiaries. And the goes on forever ... forever!  I was very pleased on my way to work one morning when the whole thing was down — a black screen with a single, shivering line of light streaming across it.

    Another newcomer to the area is the "Cybercoaster."  I don't recall what they actually call themselves but what we're talkin' here is one of those '3D virtual reality, shaking chair, movie theater' deals. [Update 2001 - a year later this business was gone]

    On October 30, Jed, Tom, and I attempted to patronize this new entertainment complex.  We agreed to meet at the bar in the Howard Johnson's on Broadway and 45th (and for the record, the only reason one should ever go there is for camp value and/or happy hour.  Drinks @ happy hour are $2.50 [house liquor only] but never eat there unless you're prepared to pay twice that of any decent diner in the area.  Even worse is Wedensday afternoon when they jack their prices up in accordance with  Broadway matinees).  My two friends arrived while I was nursing my second martini.  They had a scotch on the rocks each, and we headed down Broadway toward destiny — stopping only for carrot juice ... and to roll a fatty.

    As we approached the venue I could see that something was wrong.  The usual images on the marquee ( samples of the glorious entertainment inside) were supplanted with a live image of  the street below.  To boot, one of the four screens that comprosed the image was just black, and another was noticeably off-kilter.  I began to wonder if the damn thing was even up and running.  Were a bunch of tech guys scrambling inside to make repairs like the poor schmucks at ITT must have days ago?  This suspicion grew when I saw that the smaller TV's at the entrance were blank blue rather than their usual cheery, representative selves.  Furthermore, a sign at the ticket window said "No Tickets for Fifteeen Minutes."

    We took a walk down 42nd St., which neither Jed or Tom had seen in awhile, and returned about fifteen minutes later.  Still the sign was there, and tourists being turned away.  More walking.  Having been in the Times Square for the past three days without so much as a single waking hour in my Brooklyn home,  I begged that we choose a destination that wasn't nauseatingly familiar.   We chose Bryant Park,  located at 42nd and 6th behind the main branch of the New York Public Library.  It then dawned on me ...

    Mike: "Y'know I just realized the park is prob'ly closed."
    Jed: "Mmmm yer prob'ly right."
    Tom: "Why?"
    Jed: "Because we live in a police state."
    Mike:  "They close it just like every other park, I'm just not sure when (my suspicion was that it closed at dusk).

    Sure enough, portable metal barrier fences blocked every entrance.  "Oh, I guess it is closed" observed Jed as we passed the cop standing in front of one of the main entrances.  It was then that I set eyes upon the first thing to really scare me in a long time.  Ahead, facing out, in front of the fence around the park, were several illuminated signs.  Set about two feet apart from one another, each was about six feet tall and four feet wide.  I thought to myself "Oh great, now they're even blocking the view into the park a bunch of info-ads for upcoming events or something."  It turned out to be worse than I could have guessed.

    The signs — the first set comprised about eight of them — were upscaled, illuminated magazine covers.  I can hardly describe the fear I felt as I was all but forced to peer at the current issues of Vogue, George, etc.

    Cops keeping people out of parks?  Shit that's been common place since Koch was mayor.  Humans dwarved by giant signage?  Ten months of Times Square got me used to that.  But this was a new and twisted version of both these phenomena.    Standing proud, shoulder-to-shoulder at street level, guarding Bryant Park such that you couldn't even look in at it, these were the playing card soldiers of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass.   Agape, all I could really think about was leaving the area.   I couldn't even muster the energy to stand there and observe the reactions of other passersby.  From what I  did observe in the three minutes or so we stood there, I honestly think that the sensory obtrusion alone made most people scared, even if they were too busy or simple to understand the profundity of what lay before them.  It can't be accidental.  This was a squad of troops ordered to say "MOVE ALONG, NOW MOVE ALONG... and, by the way...Vogue."  More squads were positioned outside the library next door. [Update: Mark and Tom both made the conclusion that these signs were related to the fashion show which was to take place in the area that week and that likely they would disappear soon — they were correct. Now the signs reappear each spring.]

    In other media news, the new Fox 'CNN'-style news program is not only all the rage in the papers (the battle of Mayor Gululiani, Rupert Murdoch, and FOX verses Time-Warner-Turner or whatever they're called now), it also broadcasts from a studio visible to anyone walking down 48th St.  Taking their cue from NBC's Today Show, passersby can peer in and gawk at them.  I assume they must be behind bullet-proof glass, but I'd think nationally recognized figures would feel intimidated knowing that random plebes are staring at their backs, hoping to get into the shot.

    Now, facing out of the building are numerous TV screens which display both the program as it appears on the air, and various news file tapes and other stuff the rest of America's missing out on.  In fact, walking by the building is kind of like being in a giant 'green room.'  It seems every week more windows of midtown office buildings are replaced by TV windows.  Perhaps one day, every window of these glass edifices will spew digital information.  Does it seem unlikely that sometime in our future entire sides of buildings will be TV screens? Yeah that's my prediction for this issue.  I warn you, my record's pretty good with this shit.  My worst nightmares and silly day dreams tend to become reality.

[Update, 2000 — the new NASDAQ building in Times Square has a giant screen as its front wall]

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