So Times Square—or a strategically amped up version of itself—was saved, but it was still not exactly a public place. There were no café tables under Cinzano umbrellas, no park benches, no fountains. But that began to change under Mayor Bloomberg.
Back in the bleakest moment of New York City’s modern history, the 1970s, there was one successful small-scale attempt at revitalizing Times Square: the TKTS booth, a trailer, supposedly temporary, dispensing half-priced Broadway tickets. In 1999, when the Van Alen Institute finally staged a competition to design a permanent booth, the winner was a bold scheme by an Australian firm, Choi Ropiha (now called Chrofi), that housed ticket sales in a box office situated beneath a set of bright red structural glass steps, south-facing bleachers where people could sit, relax, and take in the spectacle.
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- Times Square (Finally) Grows Up , Wednesday, December 30, 2015 - 13:03