Times Square, as dreamed by the insensate machine. Oh it's so much more interesting today, right?

Eh.

Technically impressive, visually overwhelming, distracting, unfocused, with a non-stop blaring insistence that you are really seeing something incredible. And you are! I know of no space like it.

But it is literally incredible. Nothing sticks or lands because nothing’s real, and nothing stays around for long. The old spectaculars were persistent cusses, and while they didn’t blow out your retinas with high-def images, they didn’t skitter and dance in a desperate bid for your attention. You came to them.

The old signs were assisted by the movie marquees, which established anchor points on the street level. Even at its worst, and it was very, very bad, there was a tawdry dignity to the line of marquees on 42nd street, like the prows of old ocean liners that had been moored and turned into whorehouses.

I’m sure there are lots of websites devoted to historical Times Square with lots of fascinating historical details. And then there’s my site.

Today:

Okay. Well. There are other things of interest. Some fantastic signage:

Absolutely classic. And it's rather new, as is this:

They summon something, don't they? Signs like this may have some motion coded into the lighting, but they don't change the basic message and replace it with something els unrelated. JUNIORS does not blink out, replaced with ASPIRIN.

The skies have strange new structures that seem unwillinng to assemble completely, but that's okay. There's plenty of early 20th century classical architecture to ground it all. For now.

The theaters provide stage sets for the streets, and no one dares take them down.

The Booth:

The enormous structures of the post-war period, the WT Grant (well, that's what I still call it) and the Marriot and so on, are overscaled and dull. I have a spot in my heart for 1540 Broadway, a late-80s building that brought some zing and color to the area, as well as red ink in quantities equaling the volume of the Bakken Oil Field, as it opened during a bust cycle and was completely vacant when completed. Wikipedia:

The building's bankruptcy led journalist Jerry Adler to publish a book about the building in 1993, entitled High Rise: How 1,000 Men and Women Worked Around the Clock for Five Years and Lost $200 Million Building a Skyscraper.

It's a good read. See, that's the thing: every address has a story. But they're long ago and far away and hidden behind a billion-bulb ad for something called "Coke," which I might try, as it sounds cheerful and interesting.

Earlier that day, after the nap, I was reminded that the Paramount, among the things it does not provide, lacked in-room coffee. Most of the rooms are 8 X 10, so there’d be no space for a little four-cup Mr. Coffee. Seriously, that’s the size. Mine was larger, thanks to an online deal. There was space for a coffee maker. But no. They don’t give you ice buckets, either. As the concierge explained, they have ice bags. You fill a plastic bag from the machine and bring it to your room and put it in the sink, I guess, like you’re planning on removing the kidney of someone you brought up to the room.

There were three immediate coffee options: the restaurant in the building that used to be the bar, the restaurant on the corner that charges nine dollars for an egg, or a beaten-down junky Dunkin’. It has 338 reviews. There are exceptional novels that never get a tenth of that. A large Americano will dig you a fiver, but it is large, and hot, so.

Evening meal: pizza, of course, but where? Hotel-adjacent hole-in-the-wall place with good reviews.

You'll note the shed poles, the "temporary" scaffolding. It's the scourge of New York. They've become permanent all over the city, and give it that Batman decaying-Gotham look. I hate them.

You can find Richard Estes views everywhere, if you're in the mood. I call this "Meditation on compacted bagss blessed by Richard Rogers."

Busy. Ten people bunched up in a small space, most looking at something terribly important on their phones, all heads bent in reverance to the glass oracle. Every time the door opens the temperature drops ten degrees. Everyone's cold. I bought two slices, and took them up to my room. The first was so good I actually rethought my opinion on NYC pizza, or at least my opinion about other people’s opinions. The second slice reinforced my old opinion.

Then another walk in Times Square.

I am enjoying myself here.

Back at the hotel, I notice an open door. The elevators for staff.

To paraphrase the Christmas song, do you see what I see?

Back up a bit.

It had it all! Dancing during lunch. Opened in '28, as I said yesterday, but what I didn't note was that it promptly went bust. But it still packed 'em in.

Wikipedia:

The Paramount became popular after Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe nightclub (now Sony Hall) opened in the basement in 1938. When the Diamond Horseshoe closed in 1951, the hotel began to decline, and the property was sold multiple times over the next few decades. 

As we say around here, the usual trajectory.

Note this:

Twenty floors, you say? Wikipedia:

Due to the presence of a mezzanine level above the ground story, sources differ as to how many stories the hotel contains. While the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission and SkyscraperPage give a figure of 19 stories (excluding the ground-story mezzanine), the New York City Department of City Planning cites the hotel as being 18 stories tall, and Emporis gives a figure of 20 stories.

I think we can settle this. As I said before, what do you see in this off-limits custodial / service area?

That's right.

It brings up another mystery, but I suspect we're fooled by the proximity of SBB to the top floor. Sub-basement, right? We're all in agreement on that?

I asked AI to dream the Paramount. It was generous.

Not entirely ridiculous. The massing and the roof are in the same family.

Then it got stern, and created this foreboding place - which, besides being awesome, would have been quite up-to-date, stylistically.

Okay, down, boy.

NEXT: the big walk - and allllll the Art. And a surprising realization!

Okay, one more AI. How I feel in modern-day Times Square.