Keep Your Hands Off My Times Square

We, the citizens of New York City, along with those who share our love for Times Square, both far and wide, demand you not turn the "Crossroads of the World" into an Anytown, U.S.A pedestrian mall.

Your plan to close several blocks of Broadway to vehicle traffic through Times Square will strip our beloved intersection of whatever character it has left, not to mention strip it of pedestrians themselves.

Pedestrians do not amble about pedestrian malls, 97-year old drivers who mistake the break pedal for the accelerator do, and it's usually not until after they've exited the car to give you an earful for standing in what they believe is 'their' driveway.

In recent years we've stood idly by as our beloved image of James Dean walking down Times Square on a rainy, black-and-white day slowly gave way to the glory and uniqueness of a Naked Cowboy. Well, no more. We demand that you allow the 300,000 trucks, taxis, buses and passenger cars that pass through Times Square each day to continue to obstruct him and his tidy whities from plain view.

If not, however, our street cred will fall far below Disneyland levels... at least Mickey wears sensible shoes.

Vehicle traffic is as much as Times Square as the 1.6 million people who walk its sidewalks each and every day. Trying to navigate around a double-parked vegetable delivery truck on Broadway and 44th Street is no different than sidestepping a plus-size tourist craning her neck up at Mr. Peanut.

Promise us you'll keep your hands off of our Times Square. Mayor Giuliani already cleaned it up. There's no need to sterilize it.

Leave the pedestrian mall where it belongs: elsewhere. Besides, who in their right mind wants to live in a city whose epicenter is nicknamed "The Great Trite Way?"