Times Square

If you haven't been to Times Square in a while, it is now time to go, preferably at night, on a weekend when it is teeming with tourists. All the major construction has been completed, and except for two bits of scaffolding that are fairly unobtrusive, it's an entirely remodeled section of city, complete with that wide swath of Broadway that no longer accepts traffic.. If the model was Disneyland, they nailed it. It now looks like that futuristic big city center with oversized TV screens and flashing lights that the movies predicted.

If you believe that the New York accent is losing ground, simply go into one of the theaters (well you have to buy tickets) and listen to the ladies shouting over their husbands heads at their friends about the bargains they recently found on gloves and the results of their friends latest MRI.

Then there were the troop of hasidic men dancing in the street and waving a flag, but being elusive when the man in the big Texas hat asked them what they were doing. Their answer: "Are you Jewish?"
The view that makes my heart hurt, is the juxtaposition of this grand old building, the old Knickerbocker Hotel, built in 1905 and where the martini was invented, next to this new glass monster (covered in Target ads).
Here it was last summer: