What it's Like to Work in Times Square

I’m on a mission to post something every day and beat this writer’s block, so here goes…

My company recently moved offices from Union Square to Times Square. If you have been following this blog at all, you know that I absolutely love Union Square, from picnicking in the grass during lunch in the summer to ducking into The Strand for books and guidance during any period of distress. Union Square is just a perfect cross section of New York City: NYU students, business professionals, homeless people, the ever-performing Hare Krishnas, the nannies with their kids on the playground…everyone is there, and it’s just a hop skip and a jump to East Village, where a lot of my friends live. The green market even so sweetly makes the west side of Union Square smell like lavender and apples, and people seem to generally be at peace there.

Goodbye, lovely lunches

But if Union Square was heaven, Times Square is certainly hell. Every street corner is filled with wide-eyed tourists standing three-across in the middle of the sidewalk, overwhelmed, over stimulated and refusing to move for even the most harried New Yorker. Cherubic children happily playing on the playground are now replaced by screaming children, frightened by the deformed furry characters that wildly roam the streets (Elmo is “Elmo” in Times Square since whomever made the costumes didn’t license the character legally. Elmo is sweet, “Elmo” needs to be committed to a mental institution and probably have his backyard sniffed by forensic dogs).

                                                                                                             Photo courtesy of http://www.muscletower.com/podcasts/destroy-all-slackers-p1/

Eating lunch is no longer a leisurely activity, designed to take your mind away from work for a few minutes. Times Square is the arena in The Hunger Games; you’re probably going to have to sacrifice someone sooner or later in order to survive. And forget eating somewhere other than your desk, because that’s not happening.

Remember night time? The night doesn’t exist in Times Square. You can walk outside of your office at 6 p.m. in the winter, and it will be as bright as day because TAYLOR SWIFT’S NEW ALBUM, RED, COMES OUT TODAY! and ANN TAYLOR LOFT is having a CHRISTMAS SALE! And TARGET is doing stuff with Karlie Kloss, she’s holding black and white boxes EVERYWHERE! BLINKING BLINKING EPILEPSY!

                                                                                                                                                                       Photo courtesy of timessquarenyc.org

On the plus side, I get to sit closer to friends in my office and we have a pretty good time dancing in the aisle when we get our inboxes to zero.