First this story...


City sidewalks, busy sidewalks
'Tis the season to be overcrowded; NY, businesses seek ways to cope with record numbers of tourists


http://public.newyorkbusiness.com/alerts/images/crowds.jpg


By Lisa Fickenscher
Published on December 05, 2005

As tourists joust for prime tree-viewing spots at Rockefeller Center and shove their way into Macy's and Bloomingdale's, the city is fighting to reclaim every possible inch of sidewalk and street space to make room for the crush of pedestrian and vehicular traffic.

The Big Apple is girding to host a record 8.2 million visitors in November and December, according to tourism bureau NYC & Company. City and neighborhood officials as well as big retailers have been scrambling to prepare for the onslaught and to lay out plans for future years that promise even bigger crowds.

"We are reaching a crisis point at certain times of the year in terms of pedestrian flows," says Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance, who wants to banish phone booths from the congested neighborhood.

For the first time since the period just after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the city is offering New Yorkers free round-trip MetroCards when they park their cars at Shea Stadium in Queens and take the No. 7 train rather than drive into Manhattan. The offer applies only on Wednesdays, when Broadway holds matinees, through Jan. 4. Similarly, the Department of Transportation is encouraging tour bus operators to drop their passengers at Shea, where riders will get the free MetroCards.

"After 9/11, we were all worried about whether people would come back to the city," says Iris Weinshall, commissioner of the DOT. Now, she spends her time convincing bus companies not to come into Manhattan.

The DOT issued the year's first holiday gridlock alert a couple of weeks earlier than usual this year, on Nov. 18. The agency also has been creating more midblock crosswalks, including one at Macy's on West 34th Street between Broadway and Seventh Avenue, which was set up in September.

Big retailers have their own creative solutions to manage the throngs of shoppers streaming through their doors.

Bloomingdale's on East 59th Street and Lexington Avenue recently hired 21 greeters to help shoppers navigate the 11-floor store.

"Bloomingdale's is one of the top five tourist destinations in the city," says Frank Berman, vice president of marketing. "This will help separate us from the other retailers."

The store also expanded its visitor center, moving it into a 2,100-square-foot space and manning it with 15 staffers who speak a total of 15 languages. Shoppers are offered printed directories to take with them as they browse.

While Bloomie's is working on congestion inside its store, some neighborhoods are coping with streets that become choked with people and vehicles during the holiday season. SoHo, for example, gets more than its share of shoppers and gawkers at this time of year. The competition for space on the narrow streets is exacerbated by illegal street vendors, says Sean Sweeney, director of SoHo Alliance, a residential and business group.


Peddlers warned away


"The city has gotten them off of Fifth and Sixth avenues, but it doesn't seem to have the will to do it in SoHo," he says.

Some landlords have begun to take matters into their own hands, putting signs on their buildings such as the one on Spring Street that says, "This sidewalk is 10.5 feet; therefore peddling is de facto prohibited."

Ultimately, the crowds are good for the economy, but city officials want tourists to enjoy their New York experience. While the even greater multitudes expected next year might seem to be cause for concern, "there's been more discussion this year about how to handle the growth," says Cristyne L. Nicholas, chief executive of NYC & Company.


Lights out on Broadway


To pave the way for more feet, Mr. Tompkins of the Times Square Alliance is seriously considering pushing for the elimination of lampposts and pay phones in the neighborhood.

"People don't use pay phones anymore," says Mr. Tompkins, who notes that street lighting in Times Square is clearly redundant.

Another key project in that part of the city is the renovation of Duffy Square, at Broadway between West 47th and West 46th streets, home of the major TKTS booth for discounted theater tickets.

The DOT just approved a plan that will enlarge the island by 40% and provide the neighborhood with its first seating area. An 18-foot-tall glass staircase will be built above the TKTS booth, allowing tourists to gaze over the world's stage without bumping into unsuspecting New Yorkers rushing to work. The $12.5 million project is supposed to begin in March.

Mr. Tompkins' group is also studying how to enlarge the sidewalk space elsewhere in Times Square and how to connect the string of the islands sandwiched between Broadway and Seventh Avenue in the West 40s.

"Over the last decade, as Times Square has become more successful and tourism has come back, there is more recognition that we have some problems as a result of our success," says Mr. Tompkins.


©2005 Crain Communications Inc.

Then this story...


If the Sidewalks Feel Jammed, Well, They Are


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/31/nyregion/31crow650.jpg
The crowds moved slowly Friday near Saks Fifth Avenue at 49th Street.


By THOMAS J. LUECK
Published: December 31, 2005

Outside Grand Central Terminal, where he has tended his "Nuts 4 Nuts" food cart for 10 years, Eric Cabrera said he has never seen anything like it. "Where are all these people coming from?" he asked Wednesday night as he was swallowed by the rushing crowd.

Four blocks west in Times Square's business improvement district, which has for years recorded rising levels of pedestrian traffic, head counters discovered something peculiar on Wednesday morning, a 57 percent increase in congestion compared to a day almost exactly a year earlier. (The survey was delayed a week because of the transit strike.)

And by Thursday, despite a cold rain, Margaret Cooper, a visitor from Newcastle, England, found herself engulfed in a throng of umbrella-wielding shoppers in Herald Square. "It's total chaos," she said.

Crowds in Midtown during the holiday season are nothing new, but this year's crowds appear to be thicker and denser. It is a change that has not gone unnoticed by the people and machines that monitor such things.

Daniel A. Biederman, executive director of the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation, said that by Wednesday a number of Manhattan business people "were saying to each other independently that this may be the busiest day ever in Midtown."

Cristyne L. Nicholas, president of NYC & Company, the city's tourism bureau, agreed, saying that the economic benefits of such crowds may help ease the losses suffered during the 60-hour transit strike. She said Manhattan hotels were at more than 90 percent occupancy by midweek, higher than usual for the holiday week before the arrival of visitors for New Year's Eve.

"I don't recall seeing these kinds of crowds, ever," she said.

It will take time to count sales receipts, and any sweeping historical comparison of Manhattan crowd sizes would be hard to verify.

But several factors have converged to almost instantaneously transform Manhattan from a forbidding center of labor unrest during the transit strike to a magnet for visitors, said Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance, the group responsible for counting pedestrians. He said the crowding may be most intense today, despite a forecast for rain during the New Year's Eve festivities, as thousands of people are expected in Midtown early in the day. "It has been a perfect storm of events," he said.

There was the transit strike itself, which prompted many in the region to put off visiting Manhattan from the days before Christmas to the week before New Year's Day. With both holidays falling on Sundays, many took the intervening week off from work to shop and see the sights.

For retailers, the popularity of giving gift cards as presents has contributed to a surge in after-Christmas shopping, industry analysts said. And for tourists from abroad, the robust exchange rates of many currencies against the dollar have turned the city into a bargain.

Times Square, the perennial center of gridlock, is under added strain this year as it is prepared for competing New Year's Eve telecasts by Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest, Regis Philbin and Carson Daly, and live performances by Mariah Carey and Mary J. Blige. The shows are all supported by video trucks, soundstages, portable bathrooms and forklifts that are already pushing pedestrians from the sidewalks to the streets.

"Unfortunately, all this theatrical infrastructure is being built while people are trying to walk through," Mr. Tompkins said.

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, describing the preparations for New Year's Eve, told reporters yesterday, "We think it is going to be a larger crowd relative to what we've seen" for previous New Year's Eve festivities.

E-mail messages from the Times Square Alliance on Thursday, which detailed the latest pedestrian counts, were prefaced by words like "outrageous" and "insane." The group's researchers, which clicked off mechanical counters, said that from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday 9,226 pedestrians made their way along the sidewalk, at 1501 Broadway between 43rd and 44th Streets - 57 percent more than at the same time on Dec. 18, 2004.

Some of the city's businesses and cultural institutions were prepared for the crush. The Museum of Modern Art, which is usually closed Tuesdays, decided to open the Tuesday after Christmas to capitalize on its "Pixar: 20 Years of Animation" exhibit, which it had expected would draw families with children during the holiday week.

For some pedestrians, gridlock had prompted unfamiliar strategies.

"It is a bit like global positioning," said Kris Graham, 56, a middle school English teacher from Philadelphia. "Whenever we come to a big crowd, we analyze the situation and try to hopscotch around it."


Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

Crisis? You call this a CRISIS? This is a good thing man! Imagine all the money being poured to your city, not that it needs more but it would do better with more!:)

Being TOO MUCH of a tourist attraction...only in New York.

There were estimates that there were 700,000 people in Times Square tonight!!!

That is the size of people in a small city all pack in Times Square! :eek2:

I think it's great for New York. Pack those streets until there isn't a fucking speck of asphalt visible.

Crowded sidewalks are quite common and normal in many european cities. I think this is a symbol of vibrant life.

There were estimates that there were 700,000 people in Times Square tonight!!!

That is the size of people in a small city all pack in Times Square! :eek2:
700,000? Im not impressed. 5,000,000 people gathered in Luneta Park in Manila during the visit of Pope John Paul II for the World Youth Day in 1995.

Good news, but it can be a problem if it makes people not want to go back. I personally hate shopping on Oxford Street in London, and avoid it unless I have to go there to shop.

Wow Youd NEVER see this in Australia.

Good news, but it can be a problem if it makes people not want to go back. I personally hate shopping on Oxford Street in London, and avoid it unless I have to go there to shop.

I agree, if somewhere is so crowded it's difficult to move around that is just irritating, not a positive thing at all. I never go to Oxford St when i'm in London.

The streets are filled with tourists loaded to the brim with cash. Gee, how troubling that must be, I really feel sorry for those who have to endure it.

damn...and new york has HUGE sidewalks too!

You have no idea! OMg i went shopping with my b.f. on 34th and Macys and i just freaked out. I started screaming and i couldnt breathe. than people thought i was crazy and let out around me...Perfect solution....I did feel the extra squeeze this year...Even when i went to Rockefeller PLaza at like 11 at night it was crowded. not like the day but gosh darn it, it was packed...

700,000? Im not impressed. 5,000,000 people gathered in Luneta Park in Manila during the visit of Pope John Paul II for the World Youth Day in 1995.

Yes I but that was a park... There are parks that get millions in the USA just for some events. This was Times Square surrounded by skyscrapers... Very tight space. Oh and it was really winter cold last night.

pfff......
an normal day in Osaka. Pic by me.
http://tinypic.com/4viwef

^ Wow if that is normal... that is too crazy... Is that inside a mall?

^ Wow if that is normal... that is too crazy... Is that inside a mall?

No, it`s a street with a roof. The street is around 2km long.

^ Maybe you are use to that, but I am not... I want to be able to walk without me having to walk on the street.

It's cool to see from a distance or bird's eye view but not fun to actually be in.

^ Maybe you are use to that, but I am not... I want to be able to walk without me having to walk on the street.

I am from Germany. My hometown has 8.000 people. I am not used to this, but i like it.

The street is closed for the traffic. ;)

Then, you should also like HK.
We also have lots of these scenes in many places. And is noisier.

Then, you should also like HK.
We also have lots of these scenes in many places. And is noisier.
Yes i really enjoyed my stay in HK.
The street are full of life.

Pic by me.
http://tinypic.com/u817k

Crowded sidewalks are quite common and normal in many european cities. I think this is a symbol of vibrant life.
I was thinking the same thing. Many of the streets in my city's centre have sidewalks as crowded as those in the pics.

^ Yeah well is my understaing that sidewalks in europe are narrower then the ones in NYC which are wider.

I notice that NYC does not go in for the British solution of pedestrianisation - i.e. close a street to motor vehicles at peak times and make it into one wide sidewalk. Not always popular but maybe the only solution.

I can think of worse problems.

^ They're considering that for 42nd St in NYC. The want to close the street to vehicular traffic and make it into a pedestrian mall with light rail down the center.

Crowded streets help give Manhattan its indentity. I couldn't imagine them empty.

Crowded streets help give Manhattan its indentity. I couldn't imagine them empty.

Couldn't imaging it either just like most streets in LA!

But that crowd density isn't that bad though! Compare it with Hong Kong streets especially when you're in Causeway Bay or Mong Kok!

I was in Times Square for Halloween '04; nice place, busy but not too crowded. But TS is not like Vegas, it was dead after 1 AM.

Those pictures of "street-life," however, make me glad I live in a sunbelt city. People are okay, but hoards of people living like insects turn me off. No offense, but that picture of Osaka is enough to make me vomit; there is no way...

When I was in New York in late November, it was much more crowded than in those pics...maybe those pics are just representations cuz when I went, there were actually throngs of people walking in the street because of massive jam on all the sidewalks sidewalks

I suppose this is a good problem to have.

Toronto was getting quite busy during Christmas time
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v313/wyliepoon/P1020674.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v313/wyliepoon/P1020678.jpg

This is a good thing. every US downtown/midtown should be so lucky. Fortunately most of the impenetrable crowds in NYC are between Penn Station and Times Square. There are other neighborhoods in Manhattan which are bustling but in a more comfortable way.

Rockefeller Center and the tree, the Empire State Building, Port Authority, Radio City Music Hall, Broadway, the Chrysler Building, Grand Central Station, 5th ave, 42 street, the southern tip of Central Park...well it these attractions which keep the pulse a pumping, and they are all in the same Midtown chunk of the island so it makes perfect sense to have this much pedestrian traffic.

I like to watch people literally pour out of Penn Station and Grand Central Station.

^ Yeah well is my understaing that sidewalks in europe are narrower then the ones in NYC which are wider.

Umm, negitive. At least in the context of inner city area's where the main shopping streets are usually pedestrian zones with no traffic. This makes them pretty wide and they can still be as crowded as the shots previously of New York Streets.

Even the streets which have traffic like NY such as Oxford Street can be incredibly crowded and still pretty wide. Most of Oxford Streets pavements are as wide as the average NY sidewalk

London
http://www.pbase.com/warno/image/24352589.jpg
http://www.katemerriman.com/sales_oxfordstcrowds.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/image/31511237.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/image/37899174.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/image/23600046.jpg

New York
http://public.newyorkbusiness.com/alerts/images/crowds.jpg
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/12/31/nyregion/31crow650.jpg

Good news, but it can be a problem if it makes people not want to go back. I personally hate shopping on Oxford Street in London, and avoid it unless I have to go there to shop.

Indeed. There have been occasions when I've been on Oxford Street and literally people have stopped moving in a human gridlock (great for pickpockets)

There were estimates that there were 700,000 people in Times Square tonight!!!

That is the size of people in a small city all pack in Times Square! :eek2:

700,000 is amazing but they had two million at the millennium countdown six years ago!

I wasn't in NYC this holiday season but I was in 2004. I remember being forced to walk in the street in Times Square because the entire sidewalk was taken up.

Fifth Avenue near Rockefeller Center was at a standstill. The crowd of pedestrians was not moving. When you go to see the tree, it can take ten minutes just to walk from Fifth Avenue down the prominede that leads to the ice skating rink.

Canal street in Chinatown has had impenetrable crowds most times I have been there, no matter what time of year.

I have been all of the top-tier alpha cities and I never experienced street-level crowds like I have in NYC.

Here are images of Central District in HK on a typical afternoon.

http://www.wilsontai.com/hongkongdays/amg_mercedesbenz.jpg

http://www.wilsontai.com/hongkongdays/central.jpg

No wonder I saw more people this year...


Record Year for Tourism


A record 41 million people visited New York last year, according to estimates from city tourism officials. In November and December alone, 8.25 million tourists visited the city, spending $4 billion on hotels, restaurants, shopping, and entertainment, one of the best holiday seasons in years. These numbers seem to indicate that the predicted economic disaster of the subway strike did not come to pass. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said there’s no reason to expect the trend will reverse, but he and other city officials took the chance to urge the importance of faster progress on the Javits Convention Center.


@ Gotham Gazette

useless thread.
If the sidewalks are overcrowded,well then enlarge them.not a big deal I suppose

Umm, negitive. At least in the context of inner city area's where the main shopping streets are usually pedestrian zones with no traffic. This makes them pretty wide and they can still be as crowded as the shots previously of New York Streets.

Even the streets which have traffic like NY such as Oxford Street can be incredibly crowded and still pretty wide. Most of Oxford Streets pavements are as wide as the average NY sidewalk

London
http://www.pbase.com/warno/image/24352589.jpg
http://www.katemerriman.com/sales_oxfordstcrowds.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/image/31511237.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/image/37899174.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/image/23600046.jpg



I think those pics from Oxford street were made during the christmas time when it indeed gets totally crazy.
but that happens in most places.
On a normal day Oxford street is not too crowded.
If you go there at around 8 to 11 you'll even find that its quite empty.

I think those pics from Oxford street were made during the christmas time when it indeed gets totally crazy.
but that happens in most places.
On a normal day Oxford street is not too crowded.
If you go there at around 8 to 11 you'll even find that its quite empty.

Many of them were from the Xmas period, but others just in the winter months. Yes, Oxford street is even more crowded in two months up to Xmas, but so are the streets in NY. Afterall, the original article was exactly about that, the extra crowds in NY in November & December.

I Quote
City sidewalks, busy sidewalks
'Tis the season to be overcrowded; NY, businesses seek ways to cope with record numbers of tourists
The Big Apple is girding to host a record 8.2 million visitors in November and December, according to tourism bureau NYC & Company. City and neighborhood officials as well as big retailers have been scrambling to prepare for the onslaught and to lay out plans for future years that promise even bigger crowds.


Oxford Street does have it's quiet moments in the early morning as you wrote, but that increases throughout the day and by the late afternoon it is choker blocked whether summer or winter.

And the same goes for Saturday's and Sunday's, particularly Saturday which is the busiest day of the week on Oxford Street.

It is one incredibly busy street, as busy as anything in NY and there is no point in denying it.

summer in Oxford St

http://www.hamfisted.net/pictures/2002/blading/images/1989_gman_oxford_street.jpg

Here are few pictures of Paris RER. Those pictures are about normal daily crowds at the rush hour in the morning. Please note that there are one train every 2 minutes.

According to the RATP, the line A of the RER is the busiest urban rail line in the world.

http://mapage.noos.fr/gogf/RER/RER-A_Auber_3.jpg

http://mapage.noos.fr/gogf/RER/RER-B_Chatelet_2.jpg

I'm sorry if those pictures are obscure, but that's because I'm a bad photographer. It was automatically flashing when the light couldn't illuminate so far.

It is one incredibly busy street, as busy as anything in NY and there is no point in denying it.



Really? Even more busier than Times Square?

Times Square is an all year around busy sidewalk event! It is nuts! As a native New yorker I try to avoid it. But the purpose of the thread is that other non-busy streets are getting full of people... It is becoming Like that of Times Square. Maybe it was the Holiday thing. But I never saw that much people in the holiday like this past one. Especially people wanting to be in such temperatures in the winter time. Crazy.

Osaka is as dense as Tokyo. Really excited.

I actually like the crowds.

I am in New York 99.999% of my free time and I love it.

I remember maybe a year or so ago, I rode the subway in Philadelphia, NO COMPARISON!

I felt alone. In fact, it was so frightening, if someone were to be robbed, there would be no one around to stop it!

At least in NYC, the NYPD are always there.

So say what you will about the crowds, but I love it! :okay:

pfff......
an normal day in Osaka. Pic by me.
http://tinypic.com/4viwef

Oh shit

My ass will,be pinched black and blue LOL *imagine all those crotches rubbing up against me* LOL
I swear that I will have a panic attack
It is unbelievable, very impressive

Shibuya

http://plaza.rakuten.co.jp/img/user/63/03/6466303/76.jpg

São Paulo - Brazil

I think some of you are showing photos when there is a parade or a festival or some special-day-sales crowds or people leaving some sort of concert, theater or whatever. :sly:

I mean I am talking about an everyday thing that has been growing... (especially on the holidays) I am not making it up... there was a story on the first page to tell the tale.

700,000? Im not impressed. 5,000,000 people gathered in Luneta Park in Manila during the visit of Pope John Paul II for the World Youth Day in 1995.
That's Toronto's Metro. :eek2:

I recently saw a TV program on NHK (Japan's public television) on Shinjuku Station, and it said that at any given point in time on a weekday, there are roughly 700,000 people inside Shinjuku Station and its immediate vicinity: thats roughly 600,000 pp sq mile. 3.5 million people actually use the trains in Shinjuku every day - the busiest train station on earth.

And I avoid it like the plague, because despite how cool it may look in photos, it is absolutely hell when you need to be somewhere and you literally cant move because a wall of humanity hundreds of thousands of people thick separates you from your destination a quarter mile down the hall.

Krull, this is Shibuya Crossing (also the busiest pedestrian crossing on earth) at about 7:30pm on an average Tuesday in September:

http://web.mit.edu/ming/www/pictures/Japan/73%20Crowds%20in%20Shibuya.JPG

When it comes to crowded streets, HK and Japanese cities clearly take the cake. There is no question about that, IMO

I don't see how this is a "positive" any more than a traffic jam. It's all fine and well to boast about overcrowding from a nightlife standpoint, but when you actually have to live and work in a city it stops being "fun" about the time you end up getting your breath squeezed out by a fat, sweaty, stinking, creepy-looking stranger that's standing just a little too close to your hindquarters.

I don't see much that can be done about the problem, though. Closing the street to motor traffic is an option, but it creates other problems (namely automotive gridlock) when attempted in a place as large as NYC. Perhaps removing a lane from the road would help? It would discourage auto traffic and allow a significant amount of space to widen the sidewalks.

Ok I think I need a vacation in 2006 for a month. Hmm... I think I will go to Europe. :runaway:


NYC expects record number of tourists in 2006


by Catherine Tymkiw
January 17, 2006

Get used to crowded sidewalks and busy cash registers this year. Tourists are expected to flock to the Big Apple in record numbers, according to NYC & Company.

The city’s tourism bureau anticipates a record 43.3 million people will visit the city, up 4.5% from 2005. The number of international visitors should rise 7.5% to a record 7.2 million. The totals would mark a full rebound from the tourism slump following the Sept. 11 attacks.

Tourism generates more than $22 billion in spending, $5.4 billion in taxes and $13 billion in wages, according to NYC & Co. and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who jointly announced the 2006 forecast.

“Tourism, which supports nearly 330,000 jobs in our city and which is so vital to New Yorkers who are just starting their climb up the economic ladder, has more than made up the ground we lost following 9/11,” Mr. Bloomberg said in a statement.

Business travelers are increasingly attending trade shows and conventions held here. Attendance at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center topped 2.25 million last year -- the second-highest annual total.


©2005 Crain Communications Inc.

700,000? Im not impressed. 5,000,000 people gathered in Luneta Park in Manila during the visit of Pope John Paul II for the World Youth Day in 1995.

5,000,000 people? I'm not impressed. In the Netherlands 5 people and a dog showed up when Pope John Paul II came to our country for a visit. Even the catholic people were not a fan of his conservative thoughts and stayed away. Since then he didn't really like our country that much. :)

5,000,000 people? I'm not impressed. In the Netherlands 5 people and a dog showed up when Pope John Paul II came to our country for a visit. Even the catholic people were not a fan of his conservative thoughts and stayed away. Since then he didn't really like our country that much. :)

Yeah, that's because you guys are immoral flaming liberal dushbags.

Having grown up most of my life in a typical suburban U.S. city, I have to say that at first my experiences of crowded sidewalks was exciting when I would visit major East Coast and European cities. But now that I'm approaching 30, I find them more and more exhausting. My last visits to Paris and NYC, for instance, were as much tiring as fun, due to the stress that results from constantly fighting your way through crowds of people in major and popular streets...and in the case of Paris, small sidewalks in the smaller, older streets, that although charming and excitingly vibrant...tiring! I would say that as a younger thus more ample city, New York city has much less of this than European cities like London or Paris, but there are places like Times Sq and vicinity and around Penn Station that can be a stampede!

I guess my point is that although I support lively and vibrant cities rather than boring hyper-suburbanazation, I'm for cities studying overcrowdedness wherever it occurs and seeing how it can be minimized...not by doing away with vibrant cities, but perhaps building other points of interest and function (in the case of NYC, maybe more train stations like London (8 or 9) and Paris (6 or 7) so that most people don't congragate exclusively in Penn Station or Central Station--why not an intercity station in Brooklyn, for instance?). Afterall, the overcrowdedness around Penn Station are the users (arrivees and departees) of the intercity trains, suburban trains and combination of subway lines...those are too many functions already, on top of too many destinations. For Amtrack destinations North, couldn't there be a "North Station" somewhere in Uptown Manhattan? For Amtrak destinations South, couldn't there be a "South Station," somewhere in Downtown, underground? For Amtrack destinations West, Penn Station could be it. Just a thought with plenty of suggestions open for modifications.

As for points of Interest, maybe Harlem can go through yet another Rennaissance and create something culturally irrisistable that can attract tourists all day long just like Times Square and the villages.

Yeah, that's because you guys are immoral flaming liberal dushbags.
please tell me you were just joking with that comment. :rant: it was so immature or obviously said by an uneducated person or ass...or all of the above.I am embarrassed to be from the same city as you.

Some of the pedestrian traffic these places get is bs!

If China lets more chineses visit the world, be prepared to see your cities completely overcrowned, not only few streets... :hahaha:

please tell me you were just joking with that comment. :rant: it was so immature or obviously said by an uneducated person or ass...or all of the above.I am embarrassed to be from the same city as you.

Yeah, I was joking. I actually love "Holland", my college teacher is from there and she is super hot.

NYC is not dense enough!!

If some people may find things too crowded at a certain time or place then that's great news for other retail areas of the city which should see an influx of people. In addition, some people will be on streets early morning or very late in order to escape the crowds... which will encourage businesses to remain open 24/7.

Yeah, I was joking. I actually love "Holland", my college teacher is from there and she is super hot.
Oh ok i was really surprised too because many NewYorkers are comparable to the views of the Dutch people..Such as myself..which is prob why i got so mad..lol

I saw two places in Turkey where pedestrian traffic stops because of congestion:D
Istanbul Taksim and The Bars Street in Bodrum (in the summer)