Looking down into Times Square from West 55th Street.
Tag Archives: times square
Hotels Near Times Square Are Gaudy and Wonderful
Filed under just pictures, living in new york is neat
Tagged as just pictures, living in new york is neat, times square
Tagged as just pictures, living in new york is neat, times square
Keep it together, New York City. My dad already thinks I’m stupid enough for living here.
Filed under living in new york sucks so hard
Tagged as living in new york sucks so hard, midtown east, times square
Tagged as living in new york sucks so hard, midtown east, times square
Saturday: a bomb scare closes down Times Square.
Sunday: someone kills himself by jumping from Kamran’s apartment building.
WTF, NYC?
Million Dollar Quartet on Broadway
Filed under living in new york is neat, music is my boyfriend
Tagged as living in new york is neat, music is my boyfriend, times square
Tagged as living in new york is neat, music is my boyfriend, times square
My friend Alison works for a concierge company that books activities for clueless NYC tourists. Because she spends so much of her day recommending Broadway shows and selling expensive dinners, she’s constantly being wooed by theatres and restaurants. Last week, she let me be wooed with her.
We met at an Upper East Side restaurant for fried hors d’oeuvres that I couldn’t eat because I was trying to play it cool on the calories before my impending trip to Ohio to see my family. (Every time I lose five pounds, my great-aunt, godloveher, likes to hug me and tell me how she and my great-uncle were so worried I’d end up “round-shouldered” and alone.) Afterward, we boarded a shiny new tour bus to take us the twenty blocks down Broadway to the theatre district, and I had to look on as Alison ate a Magnolia Bakery cupcake:
I’m not really up on my Broadway, so I hadn’t heard of Million Dollar Quartet and honestly wasn’t expecting much from it. Especially when the theatre where it was playing, the Nederlander, was one of the tiniest I’ve been in. Of course crap doesn’t make it to Broadway, though, and the size of the theatre made it so that our front-row mezzanine seats were approximately a foot from the stage.
The musical revolves around the night in 1956 when Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis all came together in Memphis to record an impromptu jam session. It’s really a musical for people who don’t like musicals, because it actually makes sense when the actors break into song. And there’s nothing cheesy about the music or lyrics; it feels like you’re at a rock concert, only you don’t have to put up with any deafening 1950s-era Elvis fans.
All of the performances were spot-on, but Johnny Cash blew our minds with how close his voice sounded. And at the end, when I thought, “Okay, this has been nice, but there’s nothing they can do at the end that’ll surprise me,” they totally gave me chills with something as simple as taking a picture. You’ll understand it when you see it. And you should see it.
You should also wait outside after the show like we did and happen to run into Elvis. And when he tells you he’s on his way to dinner like he did with us, remind him to stay away from the fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches lest he die an early death.
The Do-It-Yourself Public Restroom in Times Square
Filed under good times at everyone else's expense, living in new york is neat, potty mouth
Tagged as good times at everyone else's expense, living in new york is neat, potty mouth, times square
Tagged as good times at everyone else's expense, living in new york is neat, potty mouth, times square
Last night at 8 p.m., Kamran and I exited a movie theatre in Times Square, accompanied by our friends Jack, Beth, and Nik, Jack’s friend Chris, Jack’s friend Alex from Romania, and Alex’s Romanian girlfriend, Simina. We were walking down 42nd Street, trying to decide which is scarier: the flesh-sucking monsters we’d just seen in Zombieland or NYC tourists. Mid-conversation, out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone bent over with liquid spilling all over her legs and the ground. She was out in the street, facing traffic, with her back to the sidewalk we were on, and I just assumed she was vomiting. She had wavy, shoulder-length black hair and a black suit jacket on. Her bottom half was nude-colored, but I just assumed she was wearing peach leggings. I couldn’t imagine a middle-aged woman wearing leggings without a long shirt covering them, but that seemed much more likely than what was actually happening, which was that
IN THE STREET.
In Times Square. Which, if you’ve never seen it, is basically the center of the world. We’re talking thousands of people milling around a few blocks at all hours of the day and night, with enough lights on every building to make it seem as if the sun never sets. And mostly people who don’t live in NYC, which means a woman with her pants down in the street is about the most exciting thing they’ve ever seen. Traffic was stopped right in front of her, so people in cabs had their noses pressed to the glass not two feet away from her bare bits. The lights glared off the urine clinging to her flabby backside. People stopped and pointed her out to each other, and Kamran yelled for me to get my camera out.
But it was too late. She finished, pulled her pants up, and walked into the subway unashamed.
