Herald Square is already a chaotic urban circus for the bustling four-week stretch between the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and Christmas Day, and soon the central Manhattan hub may get actual carnival rides. The local business-improvement district has issued a formal call for proposals, sparking widespread discussion about the potential introduction of Ferris wheels and arcade games to the iconic midtown intersection, per reports from The City Reporter. This potential transformation aligns seamlessly with the continuing, decades-long municipal effort to pedestrianize the area, a movement that began in earnest during the Bloomberg administration. Today, the heavily trafficked strip of Broadway directly in front of Macy’s flagship store is permanently closed to cars, while Broadway for several blocks both to the north and to the south of 34th Street is heavily traffic-restricted, with significant stretches of asphalt converted into public pedestrian space outfitted with café tables, bike racks, and outdoor seating.
The ongoing evolution of Herald Square mirrors the transformation of Times Square, which was pedestrianized in stages amid considerable public debate and shouting from 2009 to 2017. Today, about half of the iconic midtown bowtie is entirely traffic-free, with the majority of remaining vehicular traffic channeled through on Seventh Avenue. It stands as a celebrated triumph of modern urbanism, widely regarded by planners and city dwellers alike, save for critics who align with the Fran Lebowitz–Patti LuPone axis of urban crabbiness. For pedestrians needing to head straight up Broadway on foot from the mid-20s to the upper 40s, the journey can now be accomplished, with just a few careful swerves, without ever setting foot on a traditional sidewalk alongside moving cars. In many ways, Herald Square and Times Square are rapidly merging into a single, continuous pedestrian district, and the introduction of curbside tourist attractions will only accelerate their unification. The bright, flashing LED boards around 34th Street and Seventh Avenue, presumably designed to capture the attention of Penn Station commuters, point toward the exact same commercial and aesthetic trajectory. Similar ambitions were visible in the unexecuted plan to install temporary tennis courts around the corner on the site of the demolished Hotel Pennsylvania, a project intended to activate the space in advance of the upcoming PENN15 development. Meanwhile, Times Square is poised to receive a thrill ride of its own in the form of the thrill drop atop the Torch skyscraper, joining the immersive experiential attractions currently opening at One Times Square. It is worth noting that the district is no stranger to such amusements, having hosted a prominent Ferris wheel for a brief period years ago.
What city planners and local officials will need to manage most assuredly, however, are the immense crowds. New Yorkers universally know to avoid Times Square unless they are specifically attending a theater performance, primarily because the pedestrian sidewalks become nearly impassable on any pleasant afternoon or evening. The situation surrounding 34th Street near Macy’s is historically more specific to the intense holiday-shopping season, but firsthand local experience reveals that the congestion is, if anything, even more suffocating. This crowding is further exacerbated by long lines of street vendors hawking souvenirs and assorted merchandise—a hustle that commands respect for its entrepreneurial energy, but which frequently creates severe bottlenecks by obstructing critical foot traffic. Recollections of walking through the area highlight days when the sidewalk on 34th Street near Sixth Avenue was filled to a near standstill, leaving pedestrians borderline immobile and barely shuffling forward. In one harrowing instance, a man in a wheelchair was only able to navigate the space by pushing backward extremely slowly through the dense sea of bodies, taking several minutes to advance perhaps 50 feet. Because his seated position placed him at roughly half the height of the surrounding pedestrians, he faced the constant risk of someone tripping and falling directly on top of him.
That critical safety and congestion concern aside, city officials and urban planners believe that if the human jam-ups can be properly managed, the area holds enormous potential to evolve into a highly functional urban space that operates on multiple levels. It could become a vibrant zone that local shoppers can tolerate and tourists will universally love. One giant midtown entertainment strip may lie in our very near future—a continuous corridor stretching roughly 30 blocks long, complete with an abundance of gelaterias and public seating. The prospect of one extended strolling-and-sitting district spanning down the spine of Broadway was a central theme raised during previous overhauls of major midtown and downtown thoroughfares, such as the redesign of 14th Street.
Once fully combined into a single continuous zone, the newly unified district will inevitably require a new name. Does it deserve a clever portmanteau, something along the lines of Therald Square? Or, alternatively, city observers might consider a more historical proposal: hyphenating the two famous names to resurrect an ancient and sadly defunct urban rivalry. Times Square, originally named because it served as the headquarters and home of the New York Times, could once again go toe to toe with Herald Square, which was named for the New York Herald, a prominent newspaper that eventually merged into the Herald Tribune in 1924 before halting publication entirely in 1966. It would mark the return of a classic press battle, albeit with the amusing caveat that one of the newspapers is long dead while the other has since relocated its operations further west to Eighth Avenue.
