My latest celebrity-on-the-street sighting: John Goodman, on his way (presumably) to Studio 54. Which reminded me: Waiting for Godot got really enthusiastic reviews. And this in a season when Roundabout has been the not-for-profit everyone loves to hate. I guess that means I have to see it.
Have you been to the TKTS booth since it reopened in Duffy Square? It's cute and everything -- I like those stairs, and I like that you can see the boards while you're standing in line. But: why did they leave so little room between the ticket windows and the curb? It's still so cramped. Isn't that the sort of thing a redesign should fix? Not only is it really difficult to walk away from the window once you've bought your tickets; when you do manage to free yourself, you're standing in the path of people trying to cross the street. It's not ideal.
When I was last at the booth, buying not-discounted-enough tickets for God of Carnage (only 30% off, and $83 should be full price for orchestra seats at a 90-minute play, if you ask me), I got in a line that looked short but, of course, wasn't, because the people in front of me took forever to complete their transaction. I gathered that this was due to their knowing very little English. I could only hear the TKTS guy's side of the exchange, because he was speaking into a microphone. And it went like this: "Hairspray? Hairspray is closed. Do you mean Hair? [Tourists confer briefly, then say something in broken English, ending with "...Hairspray."] I'm tryna TELL you, Hairspray is CLOSED. DO YOU MEAN HAIR?!" And so it went, back and forth, until finally (I think) they ended up with tickets for Mary Poppins. Meanwhile, the people at the window next to us were asking, in equally uncertain English, "Do you have Wy-ked?" It's a regular United Nations down there in Duffy Square, I'm telling you.
2 comments:
Do you think the new "pedestrian mall" will help?
It probably will, a little. There will still be traffic on the cross-streets (I think? Haven't seen it for myself yet), so people won't be able to spill off that sidewalk to the north. But Broadway being closed will probably mean fewer people bothering to cross the street at the corner. It can't hurt! And it will make it easier to get to the booth in general -- the only reason I ever intentionally walk through the heart of Times Square.
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