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Times Square: Look Back in Anger

We'd be remiss to let the week slip away and not mention Sunday's very special City section of the Times, devoted to "A Century of Times Square." Fortunately, Elaine Swann, an 85-year-old resident of the area, spoke for us all:

I hate Times Square and everything they've done to it. It's destroyed our lives... The idiot tourists come in droves. I want to kill them when I'm trying to get across the street... I wish the area had stayed the way it was. I liked the pornography stores. The neighborhood used to be for people who lived here. I used to live in the Village, and I wish like hell I'd stayed in the Village.Runner-up for best quote goes to the general manager of the Times Square Olive Garden: "The thing I hear most often from out-of-town guests is: 'We didn't know you were here. We've been in New York over a week, this is our last day, and we're so excited we've discovered the Olive Garden.'" Times Square and the Olive Garden: Discover them again for the first time.
· Their Times Square: A Dozen Dispatches from Wonderland [NYTimes]
· A Century of Times Square [NYTimes]