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Just when you thought Times Square’s aggressive tip-hustling costumed characters couldn’t get more annoying, we’re seeing a new category of hustle that’s as vulgar as anything we’ve seen in years in that teeming crossroad.
We’re talking about the topless, all-but-nude body-painted women who have flooded our most iconic public plaza—looking and behaving like cheap, strip-club performers and accosting tourists and New Yorkers alike with suggestive poses and outstretched hands.
Disgusting is not too strong a word for this new gimmick. City officials have to find a way to stop it.
Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer has called the situation a “disaster” that threatens the district’s family-friendly image, and is a strong voice in calling for action. Her office has been hearing from visitors around the world complaining about the tawdry scene.
The Daily News is doing a great job of chronicling the conditions, and the Times Square Alliance—which works to improve and promote Times Square as a safe and attractive icon of entertainment, culture and urban life—has certainly been on the case.
A video recorded by the Alliance shows a shaken Los Angeles mother with three boys who said the women seemed to come at her family from all directions, and that one verbally threatened her when she asked to please let her family pass.
The mayor’s office and local legislators, including City Council members representing the area, have voiced concern and say they are looking for ways to take corrective action.
The problem, they say, is that it is not illegal to be topless in public places and that panhandling is not unlawful either, provided it’s not aggressive.
That may be technically true, but it also looks suspiciously like hand wringing and casting around for blame: The courts, our body of laws, our right to freedom of expression and so on.
We say these officials have to look harder and think smarter to get something done.
Many of us remember the Times Square of the 1970s and 1980s, when it was a seedy, crime-ridden strip overrun with prostitutes, pimps and porn shows.
It took imaginative local governing and planning on the part of the city and the state, quality policing and help from civic groups like The New 42nd Street and the Times Square Alliance and private companies like the Disney organization—whose 1994 production of “Beauty and the Beast” brought families back to the district and spurred the explosive revival of Broadway theater that continues to this day.
That can all go downhill in a hurry, however, if tourists stay away.
So here are some things we can suggest: The Police Department should consider a special undercover task force with a mission to go after aggressive begging. It worked in getting rid of squeegee men, after all.
And someone should look at the possibility of creating a special district for the Times Square pedestrian plazas, where all of this begging takes place—possibly declaring it parkland, as the Daily News suggested, thereby giving the city or state more control over what happens within its boundaries.
Father Duffy Square, for instance, where the popular TKTS booth is located, is officially parkland and the panhandlers and grifters know to stay away.
Would any of this be challenged in court? Possibly.
But it would take years for a case to make its way through the system—years that the city could use to clean up one of its most precious public spaces.
