Introducing Times Square.
This lively plaza in the middle of Manhattan is the pulsating heartbeat of the world, surrounded
by a dazzling light show with dozens of Broadway theaters all around.
This is the place to begin and end your visit to New York City.
Oh, but the purists, and the cynics, and the hard-core New Yorkers will say: keep away
from this place.
It's too crowded.
There is too much honky-tonk.
It's too fake and phony.
It's all touristic.
There are crazy people here, and pickpockets, and hustlers out to get you.
All of which is true, but that's what makes it such an incredible and memorable, exciting
experience, and why 65 million visitors come to the city every year.
Of course, the Broadway shows are a major attraction, and you can get tickets at a discount
right here at Times Square TKTS booth, open daily from 3 PM till 8 PM, and 10 AM for matinee
days.
Just above that TKTS theater ticket booth you'll find the red steps.
It's a staircase to nowhere, but this is one of the main gathering points of the city.
The steps offer an inviting place to sit down and take a break from your hectic day, and
functions more like a theater rather than a staircase, providing a great view of other
people as well as looking out across Times Square.
You will meet people from all over the world.
(Laughter) Then because it's New York, you can strike
up a conversation with anybody.
Zooming out from those red steps in a view from Google Earth, you can see how Times Square
is surrounded by giant skyscrapers, sitting at the bottom of a deep urban canyon.
This video was photographed in early March 2020, just days before the COBVID lockdown
was enforced.
It was a time of innocence and naïveté where nobody realized about the danger of the disease
that was coming right around the corner.
And so people are walking without any masks or social separation right through the heart
of town, shoulder to shoulder.
Unfortunately, New York paid a severe price for that behavior suffering the worst spike
of COVID infections that have happened in the country.
But great lessons were learned and precautions were soon taken that brought the spread of
COVID under much better control.
Normal life is coming back, so you can make preparations now to plan a visit to New York.
And when you get there, be sure to spend lots of time in Times Square, as we are showing
you throughout this episode.
The city has done an amazing job of transforming what had been a busy automobile intersection
into a pedestrian paradise, with lots of furniture, tables, chairs, places to sit down and relax.
You don't even have to buy any food, just have a seat, take out your own snacks and
drinks, watch the people go by.
The city's also put nice controls on some street performers, especially these cartoon
and action characters who used to be all over the place pestering you for money and a photo.
Now they're corralled in one set area.
But remember, if you take a picture with them, they want their tip.
After all, they are hard-working characters, and they've become an interesting sideshow
ju, st having a little fun with you.
You can always find a cheap lunch at the rolling hot dog stand.
There are lots of hotels all around Times Square, such as the Crowne Plaza, where I
have enjoyed several stays.
You know, there are never any paid product placements in my videos.
I never take any money or discounts for mentioning a business.
I'll occasionally point out various shops, restaurants, hotels and theaters because I
think it's something you would enjoy.
It's so convenient to have a nice buffet breakfast served right at your hotel, especially in
a setting like the Crowne Plaza, with its picture-window view looking out across Times
Square.
And many of the rooms also have a panoramic view of the skyscrapers all around.
We are right in the middle of the action.
If you want to search for a centrally located hotel, look at Google maps, for example, and
in the red circle, that's all of the hotel choices.
Also, hotels.com, and Expedia offer that kind of map-based search.
It gives you a good idea of pricing, but personally I prefer to book with the hotel directly if
they can offer the same, or perhaps even a better price.
For a boutique atmosphere, try the Renaissance Times Square Hotel.
The map shows Times Square's location in a busy tangle of streets at the intersection
where Broadway and Seventh Avenue come together, between 42nd and 47th streets.
You see it's not a square.
It looks more like a bowtie, two triangles put together, along with many blocks of side
streets.
Those might be the technical borders, but what we think of as Times Square does extend
beyond those boundaries for several blocks in every direction between Seventh and Eighth
Avenues, Broadway in the middle and from 40th St. to north of 50th St.
And of course, the most famous of all is 42nd St., which I remember as a young New Yorker
back in the 1960s as a really sleazy, run down, even dangerous, filthy place, but has
been transformed and now is one of the great streets of the world.
In the 1980s to the clothing chain Gap was one of the first businesses to set up a brand-new
retail shop here, and that was the beginning of a major rejuvenation, followed by Disney,
who bought out the Amsterdam Theater on 42nd St. and put in Lion King, transforming a seedy,
rundown block into a family festival.
When you get up to 49th St., keep walking north a few more blocks into the 50s, and
there too , it's a lively, busy part of the city with more shops and plenty of restaurants,
and a few more theaters.
You have left the pedestrian zone but those sidewalks are wide and it's a great place
for walking.
There's always stimulating sites all around you.
And at 54th St. you've arrived at the home of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
If you keep going for another five blocks, you'll arrive at Central Park, which is the
subject of one of our other movies about New York.
We've got more than a dozen movies about this wonderful city focusing on all different parts
of Manhattan from uptown to the Highline, Greenwich Village, Chinatown, lower Manhattan,
the Financial District -- all around you can find in our collection.
Unfortunately, Manhattan has many of these scaffoldings along the sidewalk to protect
the pedestrians from the crumbling building overhead.
Rather than repair the building, they just put up a scaffolding.
In the midst of all these sleek modern glass skyscrapers, you will notice quite a few of
the older historic buildings, nicely preserved, providing a welcome mix of visual attractions
for you.
But overall, Midtown is a place of modern skyscrapers and Irish bars.
Electric heart of the city, packed with honking taxis, pedestrian mobs, giant billboards lighting
the sky, Broadway shows all around, and some hundred places to eat and drink -- with a
constant stream of street theater, 350,000 people passing through every day, many of
them locals on their way to work.
Performances don't only happen inside these Broadway theaters.
you're going to find it all around you on the streets.
There are entertainers, and just the simple fact of urban street life is entertaining
in itself, especially here.
And you can get your picture taken with not just one or two but three Statuesof Liberty
for a reasonable and negotiable fee.
While it might seem to be the peak of touristic silliness, it just could be a photograph that
somebody will treasure many years in the futu, re with a good laugh.
How busy is it?
Times Square is the most-visited place in the world, packed with over 131 million people
each year – a mix of locals and visitors.
That's according to the official organization the Times Square Alliance.
That's all for now, but we do have another excellent movie about Times Square, the beating
heart of the world.
We frequently upload new movies, so please subscribe to our channel and click that little
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and we always welcome comments down below, or if you have questions about the destination,
make note and we will answer them.
Thanks for watching