New York Times Square Transforms From Crowded City Into A 'Multi-Use, Dynamic, Changing' Public Space

One reason most travelers need a summer vacation away from urbanized locations is because they could be hot, congested and extremely stressful without any effort. Most residents have work stress attachments to urban cities, but it is not the city's fault itself. This is why architecture firm Snøhetta's design revolutionized the usual citizen's impression of New York Times Square's lengthy populated walk.

According to Wired, New York Times Square shows its final form after a six-year makeover. The new look sports a "European-style piazza" that does away with the congested, ant-like number of walking workers, residents and tourists and introduces a "spacious" place where one could "meander, look around" and "breathe."

Snøhetta intends to make the new piazza-style public spaces as popular as London's Trafalgar Square or Siena Italy's Piazza del Campo. The architecture firm installed five different benches designed to provide communal spaces including electrical outlets for freelancing individuals, allowing the public spaces to be a cultural hub of sorts where buskers and other performers could just stay and socialize with the rest of the city.

Aside from buskers, food vendors and spaces for public art installations and speaking events are encouraged activities in the new public spaces. Yearly yoga festivals are also inbound according to Gothamist. The renovation featuring Snøhetta's work is a project of the Times Square local city government and the Times Square Alliance.

Snøhetta Founding Partner and Architect Craig Dykers said the company "took a minimalist approach" to designing the public spaces. "Taking things away," such as phone booths, excess street lamps, disconnected crosswalks and "other street-clutters" was their primary order instead of making additions to existing spaces.

The new public spaces might mean headaches for motorists essentially because Broadway from the 42nd to the 47th would be closed to vehicles as it houses the new public spaces. The closing of Broadway is seen as a boon to the local professional and residential population as the NYPD notes 40 percent lower pedestrian injuries and 15 percent fewer car collisions since the local government closed the road.