The night of the 13th July apparently was not under a benevolent star, in fact, there were no stars visible at all. However, a pale moon watched over the scene together with a whole legion of police. Contrary to the information I had saying that it would not be a problem to do a meditation, the island in front of the army registration office was fenced and guarded by young and eager police officers who did not want to say anything about the purpose of the fence. A service clerk then explained to me that later that night some trucks would be coming in, delivering stuff connected to a baseball game. He said he would lose his job if he let me in the area.
Well, I apologize to all of you who came that night and could not find me. I sat down on the north side of 44th street in the middle of the lanes of Broadway and 7th Avenue, leaning against the concrete wall of the banana flowerbed, and did what I had come to do, I watched:
At 10.00 pm the crowd is as dense as on a Saturday afternoon. The island really seems to be the only space where you could even think of putting your feet on the ground. The smell is the first thing that finds its way into my awareness: burning, sweet and sticky pancakes. It stays with me all night. Right next to me an ice cream vehicle and some Russians trying to climbing up the lantern post right in front of me compete for my attention. Then the Russians melt back into the crowd. People, people and people. Every now and then somebody or something sticks out. Groups. Cameras. Shots. The yellow cabs swarm by like yellow fish, I remember my friend Mary saying. The moon has disappeared behind the ex-New York Times tower and the screens take over the night sky. People sit down next to me, rest, talk, discuss, scream, fight, laugh, take more shots, get up and leave - perpetual waves.
At around 11.00 pm a first decrease in numbers becomes noticeable, plus more areas of the pavement and the litter that it is covered with become visible to the eye.
A couple sits down to my left. He walks away for a minute to get food, and she asks me if I have been a writer for a long time. They come to Times Square every time they visit New York, she says. They love watching people. She just watched the police chasing away some street mongers and urging people to move on because they were slowing down the crowd. She laughs because isn’t Times Square all about standing still, watching, taking pictures and slowing down the crowd? She points out all the little details that I usually hardly notice: some interesting red pants, a beautiful face, a special kind of camera, some visitor looking Japanese, and so on. Another thing she remarks upon is that every time she comes here there are more screens. You wouldn’t expect it because all available space seems already covered, but this is as it is. I remember the newspaper article a friend of mine sent me recently about plans to mount an even larger screen, in fact The Largest Screen to the façade of the very building we are just looking at.
I close my eyes and try to find the inner silence. The world does not turn black, though; the screens just continue flashing their messages through the curtain of my eyelids into my awareness, which somehow feels like stroboscopic lightning. This is something you only notice at night and with closed eyes, when the contrast between their brightness and the darkness of the night sky is the strongest. After a while I become very quiet and feel the nausea of my very first meeting with this place coming back. The flashes on the other side of my eyelids, ringing rickshaw bells, and honking trucks and cabs mingle with the images emerging in my inner space.
Somebody touches my knee and I am back. A friend of mine has found me despite the complications. He sits down next to me. A little later he tells me he usually experiences two occasions of nightly rush hours. Between 10:00 and 11:00 pm the theaters are out and at 4:00 am the bars close which makes for some movement in Times Square.
Then he helps me chalk-drawing the Times Square Mystery X-man on the pavement. It’s fun, however it apparently causes the police to turn their attention to what we are doing. Smiling and satisfied by my explanation and reassurance about the limited lifespan of the chalk drawing they leave us alone for the time being.
I spend the final hour of the night watch alone. Times Square has become nearly deserted by now. The session comes to a sudden and early closure when another police man approaches and quite obviously annoyed by my presence and the drawing on the pavement asks me to leave within two minutes. Otherwise he would have me follow him to the department. Suddenly I see my meditation put in the vicinity of criminal activity and my short-living chalk drawing called graffiti. Well, everything seems a matter of how you look at it. I picture myself chalking on some Berlin pavement which wouldn’t anyone cause to even shot a glance. But this is not Berlin the police officer points out. Imagine everybody would do it, he says. I do and I think to myself it would certainly slow down the crowd, and possibly not really for the worse.
I leave the now completely empty Times Square a quarter of an hour prior to the intended end of the session.
However, I take the stroboscopic lightning flashes with me into my dreams and beyond, and they stay with me in a not too remote corner of my consciousness right through the entire next day. The slight nausea ceases sometime during the night, though. I wonder what might be the effects of their perpetual impact.
The Times Square night watch certainly has been an experience of its own kind.
The Times Square that I got to know in April 2005 was quite a frenzy place. Five year later it still is but in a rather different way. What seemed impossible as late as in 2008 happened only a year later - the place calmed down, and the changes have continued. Maybe there will be a day when a vision I had in May 2005 about Times Square being the center and the venue of a twenty-four hour day of contemplation, art and celebration and the place itself will find a point of convergence.
