times square keeping space public

7/28/2019 Times Square Keeping Space Public

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Introduction

1

Times Square is a singular crossroads of the New York City urban grid.

It is made out of the narrow encounter between Seventh Avenue and

Broadway, the only diagonal avenue of the gridiron. This encounter cuts

out a specific public space, 5 blocks long, or about 500 meters, with a

width varying from 25 meters in the center to 100 meters at each

extremity. This unusual shape has given Times Square a nickname: the

bowtie (Taylor 1991).

2

Times Square is a busy space. On the Avenues' sidewalk, according to

the Business Improvement District, pedestrians walk at rates varying

from 2000 to 9000 persons an hour. The site is a huge commercial

center, with more than 600 stores totaling about 150 000 square meters

of sale space (BID 1998). Times Square also shelters one of the busiest

subway stations, with 11 lines radiating towards the outer boroughs. Car

traffic is also dense, completing the impression shared by every tourist

of a space always in movement.

3But of course, the most famous dimension of Times Square is the

spectacle of its gigantic and multicolored signage that dresses up the

facades of all the buildings fronting the square. Since 1986, signage has

been imposed by a local zoning law that forces developers to include a

surface ratio of advertisement as well as other "cultural" guidelines. In

1998, a well-located sign, such as the giant Panasonic screen on the

Times Tower, rented for about $2 million annually with maintenance

costs of about $1 million (Boyer 2002; Sagalyn 2001).

4

Such a popular and commercial success raises a number of issues

regarding the management of flows, not only to prevent accidents

between pedestrians and cars, but mostly to guarantee the best

exposure of the site to the 1.5 million daily visitors. Pedestrians are a


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direct measure of success of the site, whose income derives chiefly from

advertisement. The main social rule is therefore quite simple: keep

moving! The Times Square Business Improvement District (BID), now

called the Times Square Alliance, is the institution precisely in charge of

the everyday functioning of the site. It is a gathering of land andbusiness owners within a set perimeter, to which the City has granted

the right to charge a tax in order to secure (50 private police), sanitize

(50 sanitation workers) and promote Times Square (Tonnelat 2001).

5

The "New Times Square," as the BID calls it, is a renovated

neighborhood. Its old reputation as a seedy pit of sex and drug culture

is still present in the mind of a number of visitors and gives them the

edgy thrill of a "riskless risk entertainment" in a "sanitized environment"

(Delany 1999; Hannigan 1998). It wasn't always safe however

(Friedman 1986; McNamara 1994; McNamara 1995). Soon after the

creation of the BID, the private police managed to dramatically bring

down the crime rate. Since then, the BID police have taken on another

mission. They serve as traffic agents. Sanitation and surveillance crews

can be compared to the workers of a huge outdoor movie theater

guiding viewers so as to enjoy a maximum pleasure with a minimum of

discomfort. Visitors should not have to worry about practical issues suchas where to step foot and watch out for their own belongings. This is

how scholars of the "New Times Square" have been able to denounce

the Disneyification of a place until then considered as a monument to

urban excitement (Boyer 2002; Hannigan 1998). For Zukin (1995) and

Sorkin (1992), it is the opening of the Disney Theater in the old

Amsterdam Theater that signaled the transformation of Times Square

into a "theme park." These affirmations compare Times Square to

privately owned places such as Disneyland where entry is controlled by

a fee , and behaviors closely monitored.

6

Saying that Times Square is Disneyfied would mean that even though

the streets are the property of the public administration, the influence of

corporate companies is such that access is in fact restricted to some


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categories of the population for financial or cultural reasons, a move

contrary to the definition of the public domain and possibly qualified as

discriminatory. Times Square is not the only public place affected by

privatization. More recently Don Mitchell and Lyn Staeheli (2006) have

come up with the concept of pseudo-private space in order to describeother US cities downtown redevelopments, where homeless and other

undesirable populations have been evicted by combined legal, economic

and coercive measures. Is Times Square privatized? Is it a pseudo-

private space or is it still a public space?

The Senegalese peddlers: between

the law and the norm7

The observation of the Senegalese peddlers has allowed me to answer

some of the questions outlined above. I have conducted fieldwork in

Times Square from the Fall 1998 to the Summer 1999 and again for four

months in the Fall 2001. All the numbers given below are 1999 figures.

The peddlers were chosen among the few who knew how to remain

immobile in the middle of traffic. But unlike the Black Jewish preachers

or the Chinese sketchers, all protected in NYC by the freedom of speechguaranteed by the first amendment to the constitution, they did not

become a part of the spectacle.

8

One definition of a public space is a space accessible to anybody. For

Isaac Joseph, accessibility means not only the physical possibility to

enter a place, but also a more interactive way of taking place, of finding

things to do in the environment (Gibson 1979; Joseph 2002). According

to this definition, Times Square would not be a public space as it isdeprived of resources for unplanned activities. It only presents a

physical accessibility more akin to a highway for pedestrians. But this

vision rests on a point of view external to the flow of pedestrians. In

order to check Times square's accessibility, one has to look into

dynamics internal to the flow, doing the opposite of the BIDs work


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which consists in channeling the flows.

9

The Senegalese peddlers appeared in New York City in the 1980s when

the US, for various reasons, became an alternative destination toEurope. Most of them outstayed tourist or student visas and resorted to

illegal peddling (Perry 1997). They were visible in tourist areas such as

Battery Park, Times Square, Fifth Avenue (by Sacks), Lincoln Center and

Herald Square (by Macys), as well as in poorer residential areas of

Harlem (125th Street) and Brooklyn (Fulton Street) where they resided.

In Times Square, the peddlers are contemporary to the renewal that

saw the return of tourists. The re-opening of the New Amsterdam

Theater by Disney in 1992 probably marks the beginning of their

sustained presence. However, it was not until the late 1990s that their

number really grew. During my observations, the number of Senegalese

peddlers was highest on week-end nights between 6 and 11 pm. In

December, the vendors were even more numerous, taking advantage of

the Christmas shopping season. Groups of about a dozen vendors could

be seen standing or walking almost any day between 5pm and 11pm.

However, during regular months of the year and days of the week, the

vendors were much less numerous, moving in small groups of two to

four, sometimes merging or splitting with other groups. For that reason,it is very difficult to have an estimate of the number of regular vendors

in Times Square at any given moment.

AgrandirOriginal (jpeg, 340k)

Source : Author 1999. Background: NYC Planning Commission.

Map 1 : Sale and storage network of Senegalese peddlers in Manhattan

Midtown

10

The Senegalese peddlers don't have an easy job. These men are fully

aware of their reputation as "street smugglers." This situation is not

specific to them but rather results from a long history of street selling.

This reputation dates from the 19th century when the hygienist

movement, paired with a rational and functionalist urban planning,


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transformed the streets into circulation only zones. Street vendors and

their pushcarts became the target of business owners, together with the

reformers, in their effort to fight sidewalk crowdedness (Bluestone

1991). Free circulation was supposed to provide the best conditions for

the real estate market while at the same time guaranteeing a purer airfor the lungs of the urban masses.

11

Street selling was mostly contained within the confines of poor

neighborhoods. Peddling was often the first job for immigrants arriving

daily from Eastern Europe. It didn't need starting capital and escaped

taxes. Cheap goods were aimed at the inhabitants of these

neighborhoods and improved the quality of life of the residents. At the

beginning of the 20th century, the Lower East Side was known for its

concentration of Russian peddlers. Conflicts were a matter of class

rather than traffic. However, circulation was already used as an

argument to control peddling by elected officials, as this 1906 quote by

Mayor McClellan suggests (Bluestone 1991):

"Vendors should remember that they have not a vested right to use the streets

for the purpose of trade, that the streets are highways and intended solely for

that purpose, and that the city and its citizens have rights in the street which

must also be fully protected."

12

Vendors were then considered as obstacles to the construction of a

modern and bourgeois Manhattan. They were not yet a threat to rich

business districts. Today, a hundred years later, not only peddlers are a

continuing problem for lawmakers, but they have invaded the most

prestigious neighborhoods prompting reactions from the mayor as well

as from business owners. With the increase in urban tourism, a new

form of street vending has appeared. It takes place within the nooks of

the main commercial thoroughfares. The politics of preservation and

"mallification" (conversion into a shopping mall-type place; (Sorkin

1992), the taking over of urban centers by large chain stores and their

franchises, brings commercial rents to new highs that evict small

businesses (Fainstein and Judd 1999). A new form of street selling


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seized the occasion, providing cheap food and souvenirs to the throngs

of pedestrians hungry for culture.

13

Luxury stores on Fifth Avenue, in Midtown Manhattan, were first tocomplain. Even though the phenomenon is new, the rhetoric remains

the same as a hundred years ago. "The street-peddler plague is

infecting the entire City of New York" declared Donald Trump, a real

estate mogul and New York celebrity (Blauner 1987). As the city attracts

cheap labor from close and far, it seems to some that the third world is

encroaching upon the first world upper class New York (Stoller 1996).

Peddlers illustrate the time-space compression of global cities that

manage to bring together the richest and the poorest (Sassen 1988;

1991). In order to avoid "contamination," Rudolph Giuliani, mayor from

1993 to 2001, drastically reduced the number of available spots on the

sidewalks of the city (Barnes 1999; Stoller 1996). In Midtown, all the

Avenues are forbidden for street selling during store hours. On

Broadway and 7th Avenue, crossing in Times Square, peddling is

prohibited from 7 AM to midnight in order to respect the night life of the

area (New York City Council. 1998).

14

In addition to these measures, the degrading image of peddlers has

been widely distributed by the written press, largely fed by the Business

Improvement Districts of Manhattan. As the private security guards do

not enjoy the right to arrest vendors, the BIDs pressure the city to

enlarge its NYPD "peddlers' task force." "Peddling is something that

really bothers people" asserts Ellen Goldstein, vice-president of the

Times Square BID, without real study (Fickenscher 2002). This lobbying

is efficient. From 1993 to 1996, the unit grew from 1 sergeant and 6

officers to 1 lieutenant, 6 sergeants and 34 officers, while the shiftswent from 8 hours a day to 24 hours a day 7 days a week (Lii 1996).

But these efforts remain insufficient. The task force, with a wide

territory and a fuzzy definition of street vendors, is overwhelmed.

15

Whereas the vendors are aware of the negative image attributed to


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them by the media, tourists and many New Yorkers don't buy the

argument. For the peddlers, the problem is more practical. On the one

hand they provide cheap goods to pedestrians, on the other hand they

are seen as a threat to public order and undermining the quality of life

as defined by the municipal administration. While they can be arrestedand their goods seized, they are nonetheless accepted by the public.

This is why an informal agreement, a compromise between law and

norm, was found between the peddlers and the NYPD. In other words,

the vendors can remain on the sidewalk as long as they don't disturb

the social order of the street and respect the rights and legitimacy of its

official workers. The compromise is fragile. It depends on the ability of

the vendors to evaluate what is acceptable from the police perspective.

Too visible an activity puts the officer on duty at risk of being perceived

as incompetent (Herbert 1997). The tactic therefore consists in making

the sale supposedly invisible by police officers. In fact the situation is

triadic. It takes place between the vendors, the police and the

pedestrians. Any of these can declare the situation out of control and

call the police to action. Here is what an African American incense

vendor said about Times Square in the mid-90s (Duncombe 1995):

"There is an unwritten law of the street...a good basic interrelation with the

public. This is something that is seen, and of course this helps the police officerin the street. I promote that with most of my guys. I teach them that public

relations is very, very important.".

Micro-ecology of street peddling in

Times Square

16

The triadic situation of street vending in Times Square pushes thepeddlers to develop a few tactics in order to keep appearances as

normal as possible. For this, they have to comply with the two main

functions of the site: circulation and spectacle, even if their own activity

is not compatible with them. The vendors present themselves so that

their dominant involvement places them as pedestrians while they shift


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their attention towards a subordinate involvement, vendor, that allows

them to stay put and proceed to selling (Goffman 1963). This dual

allocation works at two different levels: first walk and stage, and

second, stop and dcor. Three successive positions are adopted by the

vendors in order to make the sale fit in the social order of the sidewalk.I call them "fit in", "fade out" and "stand out" as we shall see further.

17

Senegalese peddlers sell three different objects in Times Square (they

sell others elsewhere): watches, sunglasses and sweatshirts. The sale is

similar for each of these articles, only varying by the container, which

requires the appropriate tactics for opening and closing. Watches are

either counterfeit or of a generic kind. The former sell for $20 to $30

whereas the latter invariably sell for $10. The watches are presented in

an attach case that vendors keep open in front of them or put down on

a crafted X, a box or street furniture such as a mailbox. The sunglasses

are all "Oakley" and sold in a plastic box printed with the brand name.

Only the color varies. They sell for $10. They can either be presented

well ordered in an attach case or as a pile in a plastic bag that can be

held with two hands or open on the ground. The sweatshirts, laid in

small piles on a large board, need a more bulky rolling cart. They are

covered with a blanket until the time of the sale. The size of thisequipment is a handicap in Times Square where discretion and mobility

are paramount. However, the sweaters are a good sell with tourists that

seek well identified New York souvenirs.

18

Vendors only sell one of the three articles but occasionally shift to other

products to follow the trends. Watches are the most common, followed

by the glasses. When it rains, the peddlers will suddenly pullout $5

umbrellas that disappear as quickly as the rain stops. This phenomenonraises the question of stock. No peddler carries a large amount of

merchandise, for fear of confiscation by the police. Vendors often have a

stock in a more discrete corner, guarded either by a friend or a wife.

The items are bought from Chinese wholesalers in Chinatown.

19


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It is difficult to estimate the income of a vendor as it largely depends on

the vendor's assiduity, his ability to avoid the police and the period of

the year. Even though a rumor among vendors says that some of them

make several thousand dollars a day, a more realistic figure could be

about $2000 a month during the summer months. December could yield$3000 while February is the lowest month with an average of $500.

20

All vendors say they do not want to work in the street for more than a

couple years. They want to make enough money to secure legal status

in the US or to go back to Senegal with a decent capital (and build a

house). Peddling is an entry job for new immigrants. They are

introduced to it by their fellows of the Mouride Diaspora, an Islamic

brotherhood. The organization lends money and establishes contacts

with wholesalers and, according to some vendors, has some informal

agreement with the police. Newcomers are shown by their peers the

tricks of the trade. However, they don't seem to have any kind of formal

training or teaching. They just benefit from the in-group solidarities of

the brotherhood.

21

One of the main risks run by vendors is the arrest and the seizing of the

goods. The fine is $45 but the loss in material goods can be much higher

although it is not frequent. In addition, membership in the Mouride

brotherhood mitigates these risks as peddlers can quickly reconstitute

their stock through a loan. Peddlers can be also sentenced to a few days

of community service by the Midtown Community Court. From October

1993 to September 1994, street vending made up 18% of the arrests

judged by this institution partially financed by the Times Square BID,

and especially designed at tackling "quality of life" offenses (Feinblatt et

al. 1998; 1997). For Mamadou though, a vendor several timessentenced, the risk is not serious enough. Vendors are self-employed

and can make up the following week if they are taken away for a couple

days. All these risks show how street vending is considered a crime by

the BID and other municipal institutions in charge of public order.


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Dominant involvement: walking and

stopping, fit in and fade out

22Most of the time spent by the vendors in Midtown is devoted to walking

in search of the best place to sell. Walking provides two important

advantages for the peddlers. First, it makes up their dominant

involvement that serves them as a cover. Vendors are before anything

else pedestrians, just like anybody else. Second, walking makes vendors

hard to locate at any given moment.

23

Even when they are immobile, vendors don't step out of the flow but

rather stand as if they were pedestrians temporarily stopped and

pushed into areas of lesser traffic. They originate from the flow and

always return to the flow. Their main competence is to make onlookers

believe that they are "just passing." This is what Goffman (1963) calls

the ability to "fit in". The peddlers dress identically to African American

workers in this area of the city: Jeans, tee shirt or shirt and baseball

cap. Those who walk with an attach-case blend in with white collars

from the buildings around, while those who carry a bag or push a cartmix with the delivery workers of the nearby garment district. Peddlers

walk in small groups, often seeming to mindlessly follow the flow, even

slower than most walkers. This allows them to get out of the flow more

quickly or to efficiently identify a follower. This is an important skill that

shows how the order of the flow comes from within. It is only because

the vendor always respects his involvement as a pedestrian that he will

later be able to come out as a vendor. This rule is most visible when a

peddler stops in a public space. He stands as an idling walker, waiting

for an appointment or for an impromptu talk before separating, and

pays attention at not becoming an obstacle to the flow, such as street

furniture or a sidewalk stand do. Incidentally, he occupies the slow

areas of the traffic, a position from where he can watch the crowd while

respecting the order of the flow. This is the skill of "fade out" which

allows peddlers to stop in Times Square while not becoming a part of


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the spectacle.

24

This ability is important as a large part of the time is spent waiting. It

seems that it is almost never the "right moment" to sell. The risk isalways too high. A lot of vendors say they only come to look even

though they have brought their goods.

- It's tough because of the police. Today, I am here but I don't open my

briefcase. - But him, there (just across the sidewalk, a vendor sells

sunglasses), he is selling. - Yes, he is taking risks. (The vendor actually looks

worried and constantly checks to his right and left, mostly to the North where

he is first from the corner). - And you, you don't sell? - No, too dangerous

tonight. Friday, Saturday and Sunday, it is better.

- Why? - Because there is more people, it is easier.

- But there are more police too? - True, but these are not the most dangerous.

The dangerous police are plainclothes. (Field journal 12/07/98).

25

This excerpt shows how the tension that prevents the vendor from

exhibiting their wares is made out of a combination of police presence

and visibility based on crowd density.

Subordinate involvement: the sale,

standing out.

26

The sale marks a shift in the allocation of involvement. The vendor goes

from being a pedestrian to an illegal street worker. With regard to the

social order of Times Square, this constitutes a double offense. First, it

doesn't participate in the spectacle or in the circulation. It disturbs the

comfort of the pedestrians who are distracted at ground level. Second, it

is precisely the exhibition of the goods that constitutes the illegal act of

peddling and that gives the policemen grounds for arrest. Thus the

peddlers are in a bind. On the one hand, they should not disturb the


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social order of the flow but on the other hand, they need to divert the

attention of the pedestrians. To solve that problem, vendors limit both

the space and the time of the offense by creating a local perturbation

quickly absorbed by the flow. I call this position "standing out."

27

Senegalese peddlers are not aggressive vendors. They always seem

uninterested by the local situation, their gaze focused afar. Even when

selling, they keep a position aimed at the crowd around. They wait for

the potential clients to come close, 6 to 10 feet, before hailing them.

The sale of watches is the most illustrative of this dual involvement of

the vendor, both acting for the crowd and diverting a few pedestrians'

attention. As walkers pass by, the vendor repeats in a soft voice the

words "Rolex! Rolex!" or "Watches! Watches!" The gaze is fixed and only

the head moves from side to side in order to watch the surroundings. As

soon as a person slows down or stops, the vendor hails him or her. As

the person gets closer, the peddler mechanically checks for police

presence. If other vendors stand by, they keep an eye out for him. If

the situation is tensed because the police are close by, the briefcase

remains closed. The vendor only opens it halfway as the client

approaches and asks for a brand name or a color. The vendor pulls out

one watch and shows it. If the situation seems safer, the vendor opensthe attach case and lets the client browse, guiding him with a pointed

finger. The bargaining is always very quick. The vendor asks for a higher

price depending on the client (around $30 for a Rolex). If the client

hesitates, the price automatically drops to the bottom price, take it or

leave it ($20 for a Rolex). Generic watches are almost systematically

offered at the bottom price of $10. During this process, the vendor

raises his head to look around at least one time. If the sale is concluded,

he slips the watch in a small plastic pouch, takes the money, gives the

watch and the change.

28

The sale of glasses is even more adapted to Times Square as the shift

between vendor and pedestrian is extremely quick, especially when the

bag is kept in ones hand. In addition, the fact that choice is limited to


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the color of the frame makes for faster transactions.

A sunglasses vendor is standing on the sidewalk between 47th and 48th street.

He is alone. He wears a beret, sunglasses and a scarf. He holds with two hands

a black plastic bag in front of his abdomen and whispers the words "Oakley,

Oakley" to the flow of pedestrians. The crowd is dense. I count about 100

people a minute of which 60 are Northbound [5 counts of one minutes, 30

seconds apart]. The vendor seems tense. He stands just north of the Sbarro

restaurant at the corner of 47th street. He turns his head left and right every

30 seconds. Once in a while, he leaves his spot, walks down to the corner and

walks back amidst the flow freed up by the red light. He addresses his

immediate pedestrians neighbors while holding the bag in front of him. But

that doesn't seem to work. The walkers seem too surprised and even a bit

scared. At 5:25 pm, two young women stop and the vendors joins them. He

keeps his bag open while a woman searches it one handedly. She holds her

bag with her other hand while trying to compare two pairs, which is difficult.

The vendor keeps smiling but warily checks the surroundings. Finally, the

woman asks for the price and searches for a bill in her bag while still holding a

pair of glasses. She is a bit awkward, making the sale last longer than

expected. The vendor dances from one foot to the other. She hands him a $20

bill and he quickly gives her a $10 back. The women say bye and join their two

male friends who are waiting a few feet further, bemused. The vendor closes

his bag and goes back to his spot. (Field journal, 11/20/98).

29

Compared to the attach case, the bag allows more mobility and a form

of walking-by sale. However, it seems that the involvement of the

vendor is not clear enough for the pedestrians, who do not have the

time to adjust to this new relationship with their fellow pedestrian. This

shows that the vendors need to establish a minimal demarcation

between their two involvements if they want to be able to sell.

30

When the shift of involvement from pedestrian to vendor is too risky,

vendors do not open their suitcase or bag but use the Restaurant Roy

Rogers as a backstage, allowing a spatial territorialization for each

involvement.


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involvement from the vendors perspective. The above sale tactics show

how the vendors manage the spatialization of involvement. One way is

to assign a different scale to the respective involvements of pedestrian

and vendor. The other way is to assign them a different territory. As the

peddler attracts the tourist's attention away from the spectacle byprying open his spectator's bubble, he also makes sure that he remains

a member of the flow. He contains the disturbance to the traffic and

limits the visibility of the transaction to further away onlookers, walkers

and police alike. Vending is an involvement at the scale of a few people

only. What is interesting is that, at any given time, a solicited pedestrian

could become alarmed and call for police intervention. But it doesn't

happen. The trouble to the order of the flow by the vendor is not

significant enough that it cannot be absorbed by the traffic and thus

prompt for the external action of the institutions in charge of Times

Square. It remains within the order of walking, where, ceaselessly, one

must move on. This is how the local breakdowns of reality provoked by

the vendors are managed by a social order inherent to the public space

of Times Square, to the great despair of the managers of the BID who

cannot find in the actions of the peddlers a justification to expel these

"undesirables" (Whyte 1980). Street peddling is actually the only sore

spot in the hunt against crime published every year by the BID (BID

1998; BID 1999).

Times Square represented

33

Why are the Senegalese peddlers undesirable? Should we believe the

complaints of the CEO's of the multinational companies when they call

on a third-world plague corrupting the image of the New Times Square?

Indeed, the issue seems to be one of image and representation, going

well beyond the physical site of Times Square.

34

The observation of the peddlers reveals yet another flow, of images and

information, made out of the capture of the first flow, the movement of

the crowds. While I was trying to describe the usual selling spots of the


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peddlers, it occurred to me that the vendors were extremely resistant to

photography, even though cameras were everywhere. They were hard

to focus on as they offered no long-range view or too quick for close-up

shots. Images of peddlers are de facto absent from the representations

of Times Square that abound on television, on the Internet or in thepapers. In fact, the image of the peddlers is not compatible with the

picture of the crowds led by the companies of media and finance

recently settled in the surrounding skyscrapers.

35

There are indeed so many images of Times Square that it has become

an icon of the place where it happens; it is considered the pulse of the

city and, by extension, of the event (Tonnelat 1999). Senegalese

peddlers are absent from this represented Times Square because they

stand in the blind spots of the video capture. The video capture of crowd

movements explains the new real estate boom of Times Square and

pushes the prices to new summits. The "New Times Square" is the

center of production and distribution of a network that goes well beyond

New York. It produces images of excitement that serve, via the

superimposition of a brand name, to promote goods that are consumed

not in Times Square, but in the commercial centers and homes of a

mostly suburban America; an America that doesn't enjoy an animatedspace like Times Square, or that doesn't have the ability to experience

first hand the stimuli of urban public space. Within this complex

apparatus of capture, the management of the flow is of course crucial.

Mainly, the rate of flow, in other words the movement on which the

value of the image is based, must be uninterrupted, continuous. Nothing

exceptional, meaning something that would not be a part of the

spectacle, can happen. Pedestrians must look happy and, above all,

must circulate.

36

Senegalese peddlers constitute a risk for the image of the "New Times

Square." Their figures are not compatible with the logo of the big brand

names. Cameras don't know how to sort the bad images from the good

ones. They indifferently redistribute everything. This risk explains why


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the peddlers are contained in the interstitial spaces of the video capture,

where, thanks to an informal agreement with the police, they are still

tolerated. The original triangular leftover spaces, created in the 19th

century by the encounter between Broadway and 7th Avenue, are not

Times Square's interstices anymore. They have become part of thestage set. The interstices have shifted to the foot of the new skyscrapers

from which the crowd is filmed. This observation shows how much street

peddling is not a remnant of an old fashion economy but rather a

marginal phenomenon inherent to the new economy of the new Times

Square, its flows and the new technologies that discreetly redesign

urban space.

Times Square between physical andrepresented: whose public space?

37

There are two Times Square then. One, represented, is made out of

pictures captured on site. In this Times Square, there are no other

events than the brand name foregrounds external to the physical site

and added a posteriori to the picture. The present is identical to the past

and to the near future, with as a sole horizon (Lepetit 1993) thetraditional New Year's Eve where, for a couple hours, the crowd is kept

immobile while waiting for the final countdown and the start of a new,

yet identical, cycle.

38

Real estate investment is valuable for the companies with the financial

wherewithal. The use of digital technology allows for the establishment

of a recognized space of experience that is not based on the urban

physical environment (Halbwachs 1975), but on the virtual network ofinformation. Memory doesn't sediment in the space of copresence but in

the images of the copresence. The place becomes the dcor of the

event, a background. For people in charge of the networks, the gain is

the control of a deterritorialized memory, easy to maintain, reproduce

and modify with a foreground. The image is threefold. In the


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background, the dcor, made out the built environment; in the middle,

the flow of the public that enjoys the place as where it happens; and in

the foreground the brand name that brings change to the viewers.

Everything works as if MTV, ABC, AOL, etc. were the great Masters of

Ceremony of the event.

39

Luckily, the other Times Square, the physical one, is made out of the

flows of pedestrians and of their diverse involvements. Thanks to

characters such as the Senegalese peddlers, and the small unplanned

events that make Times Square accessible, the place remains a public

space. Times Square is therefore not exactly in danger of Disneyfication.

Rather than a public space that becomes secondary to a represented

space of information, Times Square shows that the urban public order is

still based upon the practice of physical presence. The self regulated

social order of the flow is primary vis--vis the flow of information thatonly captures it. If Times Square represents an idea of urbanity for

viewers around the globe, it is only because it is still accessible,

meaning still public.

40

But there is danger. Today, the Senegalese peddlers have disappeared

from Times Square. Several reasons have contributed to making the site

inhospitable for illegal street vending. First, as the buildings are

progressively being renovated, the cheaper and older restaurants are

gradually replaced with higher end chain stores such as Planet

Hollywood. In 2001, the Riese Brothers closed their Roy Rogers and

Pizza Hut restaurants, used by the vendors as a backstage. It is now

occupied by MTV retail stores, not tolerant of the idling presence of

peddlers. Also, an ABC studio appeared on the second floor of a building

across the square, wherefrom the cult show "Good Morning America" isshot, using the now abandoned selling spot as a background off limit for

vendors. Finally, in 2003, the NYPD raised the number of NYPD officers

patrolling Times Square (Dewan 2003). It seems that they have also

started to apply more systematically a 1992 State law that allows

officers to charge peddlers with dealing counterfeit merchandise. This


19/22

offense is considered a felony and carries important consequences for

the Senegalese immigrants who, if convicted, are barred from ever

applying for US citizenship. All these measures progressively

transformed the ecology of Times Square into a more controlled

environment, a phenomenon similar to what Duneier has described inPenn Station for the homeless population (Duneier and Carter 1999).

41

As a result, it has become more and more difficult for the peddlers and

other street level workers to divert the pedestrians from the dominant

spectacle of Times Square. When the flow will be entirely controlled,

Times Square won't be public anymore.

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