Mayor Bloomberg Hears Out Critic On the Newly Closed Stretch of Broadway in Times Square

Michele Kroll got to Mayor Bloomberg yesterday as he walked through Times Square and the new pedestrian mall on Broadway.

Mayor Bloomberg walked through Times Square in the early evening of Memorial Day with girlfriend Diana Taylor. A New Yorker living at 38th and Park, Michele Kroll, approached the mayor to tell him she shouldn't have to go to Chicago to get home ("that's my Jackie Mason humor," she said in an interview a few moments afterward). She explained that her cab fare would be higher now that they Broadway was closed and cabs would have to go around it.

Mr. Bloomberg said the cabbies and all of us would get used to the new traffic pattern. New York City's Department of Transportation asserts the closing of Broadway will improve the flow of traffic. The extra room on the street certainly made it easier for Ms. Kroll to spot and run up to Mr. Bloomberg. Forty minutes later she hailed a cab at 43rd and Broadway to go home, presumably without having to go to Chicago first.

As for the rest of the people walking through Times Square, many were bewildered by the sight of hundreds of people lounging in beach chairs, mostly facing north with their eyes directed upward. These onlookers figured there must be some show or event taking place and they couldn't figure out what it was. The answer: there was nothing going on but the broadcasting of ads and television on the big screens above. So those billboards now have an even more captive audience. Not everyone was transfixed, though: the couple below managed an intimate moment.