David Alan Harvey Loft Workshop, entry # 15: Times Square, p4: of cops and cameras, terrorists and criminals, in target #1

Officers Iocco and Kerekes, at work, Times Square, New York City.

Officers Iocco and Kerekes pose for pictures with a tourist.

Officers Iocco and Kerekes pose for pictures with another tourist.

Officer Iocco. It is he who we who wander Times Square rely upon to keep us safe.

Young woman poses with Officers Iocco and Kerekes. The two cops willing posed with everyone who asked - and while I was nearby, everyone who asked was female. Not a single male asked. The two young cops did not ask for money from people who wanted to pose with them.

Someone else could come onto Times Square in a New York cop costume, ask for money and then all kinds of people would be willing to pay him for the right to pose with him.

I wonder if most of those would be women, too?

Maybe next time I go to New York, I will buy a cop costume, head to Times Square and test it out.

I looked up the ten most photographed places in the world. Ten cities were named, with a landmark in each one of them. New York City and the Empire State Building was number one. I don't how they figure such a thing, but I don't believe it.

It may be that just about every tourist who goes to New York takes a picture of the Empire State Building, but those same tourists also go to Times Square, where, for every frame they shoot of the Empire State Building, they probably shoot 10, 20, or more in Times Square.

I have no stats to back me up. Logic just tells me it is so.

Cameras everwhere.

Cameras looking here, cameras looking there, cameras looking at me, cameras looking at you - and Angela, too.

People posing with sketches of themselves in front of camera so that they can get their picture taken and prove that they were really here, in Times Square, in New York City, where a world famous artist never spoken of by the critics sketched their likenesses onto paper.

And this is what all these cops are charged to protect. The most crowded area in the most crowded city in the United States, the number one target for terrorists from around the world - not to mention would-be pick-pockets, thugs, shysters, murderers, rapists and hucksters.

Still, I felt as safe in Times Square as safe can be. Certainly safer than in Wasilla. There were no loose dogs to bite me, no ravens to steal from me, no moose to jump up and down and stomp on me, no ice to send my feet flying out from beneath me, no snowmachiners or fourwheelers to roar blindly down the same path I walk upon, no frostbite to steel my ears, toes, fingers or nose away from me.

Even so, and as interesting a place as Time Square and New York is to visit, I prefer Wasilla.

Cop at work in Times Square, New York City.

Comments

[Grandma Nancy]

Loved the photos of Times Square -- I was in New York City for 4 days 20 years ago. It was wonderful and noisy and exciting, with taxis everywhere honking their way through the streets. Thanks for sharing all of this with us.

[Martin]

My outstanding memory of Times Square, on my only visit there some ten years ago, is chess players. Guys sat at trestle tables hustling tourists for $5 a game. I won $10 but have since spent it, and all I have now is the memory. Thank you for reminding me.

[KatzKids]

Fantastic. You could do nothing but sit there & people watch forever without getting bored. Thanks for bringing it to us. Great photos - as usual!

[Logbook - Wasilla - Beyond]

Grandma Nancy. Who knows. Maybe you were there at a time to coincide with me being there. Maybe we stood on the same corner, trying to hail the same cab. You won. I remember. I had to wait for the next cab.

Martin - were they still playing chess there, just ten years ago? I haven't seen anyone playing chess on Times Square since they Disneyfied it. Surely, I would love to photograph chess on Times Square.

KatzKids - that's true. And yet, at a certain point, one gets to feeling that he has spent enough time on Times Square and that it is time to move on. I'm kind of getting that feeling right now, so I will make one Times Square post sometime in the next three or four hours and then I will move on.