Tim Tompkins, Times Square Alliance President
20 years, 20 champions. Each instrumental in Design Trust's lasting impact on NYC's public realm. Each another journey.
Hear each champion's story, one every day here on our blog, culminating with a grand celebration on October 14, at Christie's. While enjoying a festive evening of music by AndrewAndrew, cocktails by Templeton Rye, custom photo shoots, hors d'oeuvres and a silent auction of art and design objects, you'll also meet the 20/20 Public Space Champions in person.
Join us to celebrate our champions, who have tirelessly been working to improve the daily lives of New Yorkers for two decades. Jumpstart the next 20 years of urban innovation by buying a ticket to the gala today.
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Time Square—the heart and crossroads of our city and the world for millions of tourists and New Yorkers alike. Can you imagine it without its pedestrian plazas?
Police Commissioner Bratton could. Reacting to tabloid headlines, he suggested in August ripping up the plazas as his preference for curbing aggressive street performers, and now-infamous 'desnudas.'
In response, we spearheaded a petition to save this vital public space in the heart of NYC. Huge thanks to over 2,000 public space enthusiasts who signed the petition. (If you haven't signed already, please join us.)
Times Square Alliance President Tim Tompkins has been working tirelessly to preserve the pedestrian plazas. And finally, Commissioner Bratton said last Tuesday that the plazas would remain.
We surely have come a long way.
In 2004, the Design Trust released Problems and Possibilities: Re-imagining the Pedestrian Environment in Times Square, in partnership with the Times Square Alliance led by Tim Tompkins. The document outlined longstanding issues with congestion and safety at Times Square and recommend a set of practical solutions for transforming the area into a vibrant public space.
In 2009, based in part on our study, Times Square Alliance and the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) experimented with closing Broadway, and creating a set of pedestrian plazas. In 2012, the plazas were made permanent as part of a $27 million dollar capital project designed by Snøhetta for NYC DOT.
What's now? Tim Tompkins tells all.
Let's start with a fill-in-the-blank question. Public space is vital because…?
Tim: Public Space is vital because we need the Commons: a diverse and democratic gathering place populated with civic, commercial and cultural activity; a place where we creatively express, amplify and experiment with our collective fears, joys and aspirations.
How can we apply that to Times Square?
Tim: In recent years, Times Square has been a leading site for experimentation in public art as well as a case study in challenges related to public space management. The Times Square Alliance’s efforts in these two areas have further affirmed my belief that Times Square can be New York’s town square, a place with the potential to represent the best of New York City to the rest of the world.
To achieve that, Times Square’s plazas, which are themselves a new category of public space, must not only be well designed, but they must also be well managed (through appropriate governmental regulation) and creatively and authentically programmed. All of this requires an affirmative vision for what the space can be and what it aspires to be.
What are the challenges?
Tim: Because the innovative Broadway pedestrian plazas have remained legally-defined as streets since their creation in 2009, there are few tools available to the City and the Times Square Alliance to manage them and create the potential for both passive enjoyment and free civic expression.
While
incidents with unregulated hawkers and hustlers have soured many people’s
opinion on the plazas (and led some to say they should not exist at all), we
think the answer lies in tried and true public-space management tools and regulatory
frameworks.
Would regulations solve the issues?
Tim: Proper governance alone will not give acres of
plaza greater dynamism or a stronger public role. An affirmative vision and
programming to execute that vision can help make up the difference. That’s why
we established Times Square Arts, the public art division of the Times Square
Alliance led by Sherry Dobbin, which has as its mission to 'collaborate with
contemporary artists to experiment and engage with one of the world’s most
iconic spaces.'
Tell us more about Time Square Arts
Tim: Times Square Arts is a laboratory for contemporary art in the public realm—a place where ideas are tested and new possibilities explored. We work with artists and cultural institutions to create dialogues with Times Square and all of its physical and mythological manifestations.
Through the Square's electronic billboards, public plazas, vacant areas and popular venues, and the Alliance's own online landscape, Times Square Arts invites leading contemporary creators to help the public see Times Square in new ways. Times Square has always been a place of risk, innovation and creativity, and the Arts Program ensures these qualities remain central to the district's unique identity.
What kinds of public art programming do you do?
Tim: The program’s three categories of projects – Midnight Moment, At the Crossroads, and Hidden Assets – each engage the district’s electronic billboards, architecture, and ground plane public space in unique ways.
The Midnight Moment program allows one artist per month to project cutting-edge creative content on the neighborhood’s electronic billboards and newspaper kiosks, each night from 11:57-midnight.
Many of our At the Crossroads programs have had a participatory bent, such as French artist JR’s ‘Inside Out’ project that pasted special photo-booth images onto the Broadway plazas.
Hidden Assets events have included tours with artists involved in other Times Square Arts projects and a newly established Residency program.
Each of these brings new and different groups to Times Square that otherwise may have tended to spend time in different public spaces in the city, or provides those who live & work in the district with new perspectives on a place they are already know well.
What's your vision 2.0 for Times Square?
Tim: A thriving town square, innovatively designed and beautifully maintained, that celebrates its commerce and culture, its past and its future, and reflects the best of New York City, America and the world.
Working with the Design Trust, which helped us shape a vision for Times Squares public spaces in 2003, long before the creation of the new Duffy Square or the pedestrian plazas, we recently drafted a fresh set of Principles and Admonitions to guide us as we go forward:
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Learn more about our Times Square Streetscape Improvement project and the resulting Problems and Possibilities: Re-imagining the Pedestrian Environment in Times Square
While incidents with unregulated hawkers and hustlers have soured many people’s opinion on the plazas, we think the answer lies in tried and true public-space management tools and regulatory frameworks.