I'm Will Fulton, and this is thrill est explored. What does Time Square look like a bunch of lights? Looks like daytime, no matter what time it is. What does it sound like there are noises, seven alarms, people yelling at you, music playing from different shops. Would it smell like exhaust, street meat, a bunch of different cologns and perfumes mixing together. I have tomit. I don't really like Time Square. That was me just two days ago. But this is me two hours ago. All right, I have to be honest with you. I love Times Square. There's great bars, solid food, and there is always weird ship happening. Sorry, that's white, Paul. If you look inside of the Cristo, you will see this game of colors. Okay, yeah, can you imagine inside it's all in Cristo. That's pretty cool, right, it's crazy sizzle Chi chicken is good. You're coming back for me? Yeah. I got in the front page of all the newspapers and New York Daily, Knew the New York Times for having a scuffle with the timesc Cops, scout on Stephen Colbert Report and the TMZ and everything. Yeah, there was a lot of yes, there was a lot of blood. Oh Times Square didn't change over the past forty eight hours, but I think I actually did. I had two days filled the towering neon screens, more than a few mid talent drinks, and one surprisingly competitive public chess match. When you sit in the gentleman activity of war chess, you're the best. That was just show you. I found an actual neighborhood hidden inside all the kitchen chaos of Times Square. They hired disasters. There are a lot of people that look like hired disasters here, and it's a surprisingly great place to spend time. Well, I'd say New Yorkers traditionally hate Times Square because I mean, in a way it's amateur hour for New York because you have to deal with that magical, wondrous energy that someone might be feeling. We're just trying to get to that block or get to work. I don't have the time and energy to deal with your you know, polyannic bullshit. This is say you. He's from Flushing, Queens, which is about and miles east of Times Square, but as thrillis New York editors, he basically spends his working life recommending things to do in New York and despite not having time rightfully for your Pollyona bullshit. He does actually like Times Square, especially right now with tourism down, Times Square isn't as crazy as it used to be. Even if I'm in Midtown nowadays, and if I've had a few drinks and you know, if I'm not ready to go home yet, I won't lie. I'll end up at Times Square, like at one in the morning, just to sit by myself and still get in. I have nothing but respect for Times Square, and I think a lot of people have, you know, this evolving relationship with it, just like they might do with New York, where you know, one day you love it, another day you hate it, another day you can't imagine yourself living somewhere else. I started this conversation with a trying to find a neighborhood it in New York City to cover for our show, and the fact that he brought up Times Square was frankly a big surprise. Times Square is called the Crossroads of the world for a reason. It's the most chaotic, over stimulated, packed to the gills portion of a city that's essentially already swarming with chaos. Okay, let's count how many people are taking selfies right now, one, now, two, three, I think well no, yep, oh, che's face timing four. It's gone through many ups and downs, but it's always, in many ways been the center of the city, a city that never sleeps. It's spinning Temple carries on into the dawn. New York, the Wonder City. The crown jewel of Times Square is a bow tie shaped pedestrian area from forty to forty seven Street between Broadway and Seventh Avenue, right in Midtown Manhattan, and strolling through, you'll see a canyon of blazing screens with towering supermodels in the sea these new sweaters. Right next to an actually giant, jolly green giant. You'll notice a story dedicated to M and M's an enormous H and M and the world's biggest and arguably nicest olive gardens. You'll bump into street performers. It's four of us hawkers knockoff Elmo's and Else's and for anyone from the nineties, you'll also see where they used to film TRL Do you remember that? And there's the m TV I have never seen anything like. Times Square is the show that never ends. Every forty five seconds Time Square changes, And I say forty five seconds because that's about the time it takes for a person to walk one block in Times Square. So every forty seconds is a new cast of characters, uh in this greatest show. That's Tom Harris. He's the president of the Times Square Alliance. It's his job to promote and maintain Times Square as a global destination, and he loves it here. Times Square is point one percent of the land mass in New York City. We are fifteen percent of the economic output for New York City. We really are the economic engine of this city. And last week over one point six million people walked through Times Square. So that is symbolic of our resolve and our recovery from this pandemic. Someone once said to me, when it is Time Square going to return to normal? And I said, normal is boring. Time Square is never normal. Times Square always rediscovers, reimagines itself, and it's a place where you never know what to expect. In the eighteen hundreds, it was called long Acre Square. Then the New York Times moved in and it became Time Square. But over the past fifty years is transformed from a sketchy hub of vice to the city center of tourism, surrounded by the always popular theater district AK Broadway, and probably most famous globally for the annual New Year's Eve ball drop. I've been going to Times Square my entire life, but I've never really dug any deeper than an occasional trip to the Wax Museum or maybe David Busters. So I wanted to dedicate a few days to really spending time in Times Square, to look beyond the souvenir shops and bubba gumps, to find the real people in the square, and to start What better litmus test for exploring neighborhood than embarking on a night of romantic dinner and drinks. Right, so Keller, Friday Night, date night in Times Square? The drumhout? Is this a date? I think it's a date. I don't know. I didn't wear my date out. You look great, so so I'm prompt you. Luckily, I do know there's at least one great as in Times Square for cocktails. Um, you can sit there, you can hold this disinfected Wow, Oh my god, I feel so official. Hey, nick, I have a microphone in my hand. Hello. My name is Kenneth McCoy on. The owner of the Rumhouse in Times Square in New York City. I grew up here. I lived here in my entire life. When you would come here in the eighties, I mean it was it was pretty rough, to be honest. I can remember being here as like, you know, like a fourteen year old kid and like trying to get fake. I d s. It's funny because I used to go to shows at the Edison Ballroom, which I guess and it's Heyday was like where Frank Sinatra would record and that sort of thing. When I say hey day, probably like in the forties or something, or in the fifties, where people would go see a show, go have a cocktail somewhere, go have dinner. I was like, you know what, maybe we could open up something like that. The Rumhouse is a cocktail bar connected to the Hotel Edison on West forty seven Street. It's right across from the Barrymore Theater, where currently giant photos of Matthew Roderick and Sarah Jessica Parker float above the sidewalk. The space inside is filled with darkwood features, deep maroon chairs and booths. There's a piano in the corner that sees plenty of action during the evenings. It basically screamed classic New York with some modern touches. Kenny himself wears a blazer with sneakers and a baseball cap. The one thing that I will say about this place that I love is that is a constant, total like variety of people. You've got like Morgan Stanley, business guys sitting next to a stage hand, sitting next to a theater director, an actor, a model, some musician, and then you've maybe got somebody in for a convention who's staying at a hotel around the corner. And when you kind of put them all in the room together, it's it's quite interesting. Along with expertly mixed cocktail else like the cold brew rum and egg white containing star Fucker. The Rumhouse has a reputation for being an excellent place to catch some raucous live music in an intimate space. On any given night, you might stumble in and find some musicians fresh off Broadway and they'll do anything from like Radiohead to like Ella Fitzgerald. And for movie buffs, you might recognize the Rumhouse from the Oscar winning Alejandro and Yarit film Birdman. There are people who stroll by you will hear them and they'll go that's the Birdman Bar. Or there's people that walk in, take a picture, and walk out. You know. Michael Keaton's been in a bunch of times And I forget the actress's name that was in there. I am a Stone. She was in here one night with Bill Murray and they were playing piano. The Rumhouse is the kind of place that will make you think maybe there is something cool happening in Times Square. I mean, I think for a long time Times Square had a bad rap. It definitely has a lot more of a shiny sort of Disney field to it. But I do think that there are places to see here. I do think there's something worth coming to see. I think it's also just part of New York City history. Joe Allen's around the corner. I think that's a wonderful bar, has a wonderful old New York field to it. It's been there probably for at least twenty five years, you know, and that's on restaurant Row, where there's probably a lot of other places that are a little like, oh yeah, that's a tourist trap, but that place is great. Man. So after a couple of star fuckers. We took Kenneth's advice and went to Joe Allen's on Restaurant Row. It's a couple of steps below street level and totally cavernous, filled with men in Fedora's dining alone, couples seemingly about the go catch the show and now us. I think if you were like a theater geek into musicals, this is a great place because a lot of these posters are I assume, like old school Broadway posters. Joe Ellen's is the type of classic New York place that really can't be considered a hidden gem, but it's definitely the type of spot that you won't find on any best restaurant list. It's not trendy, but it is a fantastic, unpretentious place to post up at the bar with a martini and eat one of the most underrated burgers in town. And they gave you a ton of wine. Yeah yeah. When eating out in Times Square, you have to be a little selective, as many of the places around are geared towards ripping off tourists. But for lunch or an early dinner, you can head to forty seven and six for some stellar kosher Uzbek food at tom Toop, which is on the second floor above a Diamond District jewelry store. For something super quick and small, you can't do better than the diminutive Los Tacos number one on forty three and seven. You will have to brave a kind of long line no matter what time it is, but trust me, it is worth it, alright. So Joe Allens is a big success, right, definitely, great burger, great dates. So far. I would say, are you actually gonna use this? I'm totally going to use this? And now what are we gonna do? We're gonna walk around Time Square a little bit. Yeah, let's gonna see the lights. Yeah, lightly, we headed out into the bright lights of Times Square to soak in some local culture and hey, even a little bit of art. Here we are, we're in the middle. What's that? I know exactly what that is, I really do. What she's looking at and what many people are looking at is a twelve foot tall of pink and purple statue that actually houses an interior fountain. It's an art installation by the artist Pamela Council called The Fountain for Survivors. On the exterior, it is adorned with four hundred thousand acrylic nails in these beautiful mosaic patterns that were all placed by hand. This is Gene Cooney. She's the director of Public Art for Times Square. She helped facilitate this installation which your ring right now, and all the artwork you see in Times Square, it's pretty beautiful. Actually, you know why present art in Times Square? I think people look to Times Square. It's an incredibly iconic place and it holds a lot of power in that sense, and so to hand that platform over to artists, I think is incredibly important. Jean and her team work hard to incorporate a layer of culture on top of what most people might consider New York's least culturally viable area. Yes, so Max Newhouses, Times Square. It's an unmarked sound installation um at the north end of a triangular pedestrian plaza right at basically forty six in Broadway, and it is very easy to miss. It is a piece that was installed initially in nine underneath the grates of this plaza. It's a humming sound and it's it's a low reverberation. It feels as though it could be part of the city escape and the soundscape of the streets, but it has this kind of warmer, almost unfamiliar tone to it that once it stands out, it's kind of really a pleasure to hear. But Jean admittedly also enjoys Times Square for some less highbrow reasons. It's almost a judgment free zone, which is kind of a hard space to find in New York. A handful of friends and I went semi ironically to Send Your Frogs on a Saturday night, and we ended up having the absolute best time for that very reason that that complete lack of pretension and no one is laughing at you because you have a balloon hat on. I mean, at one point the service staff and the guests all got up in a conga line. It was a blast. Send Your Frogs sadly is closed now, but luckily there are still places around the area to secure a pretension free late night drink. I think I'm gonna get to Lindsay Lohan cocktail. The Russian Vodka Room on West fifty seven is a lounge featuring casks of infused vodka. So where to drink some vodka? Right, Yeah, which like doesn't really go with the wrong That was hours ago. My mom told me never to mix. And some really great Russian dumplings and a variety of live show tuny music. But the Russian Vodka room is another place you won't find them many travel guides though. It's so so great for people watching and having a nightcap in midtown. Okay, fair enough, I've just like discussions like liquidated into a cocktown. It was a perfect end to a surprisingly great Time Squared dates. Do you think that overall this has been a fun date in Times Square? I always like to come to Test Square with you. Thank you. On that note, we're going to take a quick break. But when we get back, we go to the dive bar that somehow has lasted in Times Square and we'll hear from two very very famous people. Let's stick around. So the next morning, I actually had a work call with two friends of mine, and I thought i'd asked them about Times Square, I mean people watching. I've been down there for New Year's and the people watching is probably one of the most made you find the most eclectic mix of folks. Yeah, I remember it. The first time I went to New York was in Montrose and it just blew my mind. I mean, I I thought I just went to heaven. I'm man, this is it going to give it anything? To see a Montrose in New York concert chiefs lost my night. Okay, so full disclosure. The friends I'm talking about our guy Fieri and Sammy Hagar, formerly of Van Haley. I was talking to them about their actually pretty great tequila Santo for an article, but naturally I steered us towards Times Square to see if they had any advice, as two worldly men like themselves would. It is crazy, you do, don't get any wrong. You really do need to know the lay of the land from everybody I know that goes on a regular basis. They they love it um and New York just has so much to offer. I mean, it really is probably one of the greatest destinations in the world for food and for entertainment. There is everything from the street performers to Broadway to the concerts. I mean, they got it going on. One thing to do carry a flask with some Santo in it, So I'm actually not supposed to bring flasks to work stuff anymore, but I did the next best thing. Surprisingly, there's a pretty cool and old and not pretentious dive bar right in the middle of Times Square. It's easy to miss if you don't know where to look. My name is Michael and a bartender here. Were you fans park freework games? Very much? Years? I mean, you know, if you come to Times Greeny the Jimmies, because where else you're gonna gonna go. It's really it's the best part in the neighborhood. Prices achieved, people are nice, you get great conversations. It's a real bar. Uh My boss always says it's a neighborhood bar without neighborhood. On West Street, less than a hundred yards from the center of Times Square, you'll find a small bar with an old blue awning, tucked between hotels and parking garages and nondescript Irish pots. This is Jimmy's Corner, not only one of the best bars in the area, one of the best bars in the entire city. I remember the blackout in two thousand three. Me and my mom bartended that entire night. My dad was here. We worked together, the busiest night that Jimmy's ever had. And we're the only place open because we're the only place to keep our beer cold. Being the three of us like in here working. We worked till six in the morning. That that may be one of my best memories because I just it's when I learned to be a bartender. And it's also like the first experience that I had with my parents where they really were like, oh, you could run this place. Adam Glenn, who I'm speaking with at a table in the back of the bar, is a graduate of Harvard Law School. He runs a boxing managerial company and now he also runs Jimmy's, which reopened a few months ago. It's been closed for the majority of the past two years after being opened since the early seventies. So my parents met here. My mom was a bartender here before it was Jimmy's. My dad wasn't in the bar business. He was actually in the hat and wig business and in boxing. He has this seventy year career in boxing as a manager and trainer in cut band. Just like a general good person, Like people come to me and say, I only met your dad once or twice, but like what he told me at night or what he said meant a lot to me. And you know, this bar has allowed that, It's facilitated that Jimmy Glenn, Adam's dad was friends with Muhammad Ali, he was a local New York City celebrity. Eventually he bought the bar where he met his future wife, and it became an institution in itself. Last year, at the age of eighty nine, he passed away from complications due to covid Adam's mother, who was originally from Poland, passed away several years earlier. But for him, Jimmy's is more than a bar. It's basically his home. We see Thanksgiving dinner here. We you know, I'd be here too in the morning, playing checkers with my dad, like when I was ten years old. So there's so much of my family history here that it just it feels great being in here. I missed, you know. People ask me like, oh, is it hard because you miss your dad. I missed my dad all the time, Like I feel closer to him here than when I'm anywhere else. And I know how much she loved this place. Like, you know, when I reopened this place, it was one of the prouder things I've done because I know how happy my parents would have been, like reopening the place and getting back to it as such, it would have been such a huge deal for them. The drinks here costs three to five dollars. Mostly The jukeboxes filled with old Motown standards. The walls of the space are covered with boxing posters, including a Rumble in the Jungle print that Jimmy purchased himself at the actual fight in Zaire. There's countless newspaper clippings and plenty of photos of famous regulars. I remember, like Drew Barrymore used to come here in her like early twenties when she was it lark like party days, but I was I was in middle school and I came out of the paper and all my friends are like, when can we go? Because like everyone had a crush on Drew beara war and it's like one you can't to, Like, I don't think she wants to be bothered by a bunch of middle schoolers. De Niro used to come here, so he made them shoot up part of Raging Bowl in this bar and Adam still lives in Times Square, just a couple of blocks away. He's seen the area change from a gritty neighborhood to a tourist attraction, but he still believes it's very much worth seeing. Should you still go see it? Like, yes, of course you should. It's something to see and it's something to experience, and the idea that you know, the greatest theater and music in the world is right here, and some of the best food in the world is right here, and you're going to avoid it because they're tourists here, like tourists go to places that are good usually, Like you know, when I go to other cities, I don't skip the touristy things because oh, it's going to be crowded. What makes New York special is the fact that everything is compacted, it's put together, and it's like what I love about New York that rich, rich and poor aren't separated, Black, white, Hispanic, they're not separated. You see all those people every single day. That's part of Times Square. Like everywhere you go, you're gonna see everything. Like I just I love this city and this is an integral part of the city. And Jimmy's hopefully will always be an integral part of Times Square. Every time I walk through that door, even though my parents aren't here, they're here with me. And so everywhere I look around the bar, I see them, like my mom greeting me when I come in, my dad's sitting. This is exactly what it's been for seventy years. Right. We've fixed a few things and we've changed a few things, but for the most part, we're the same place, and we have the same spirit in the place. So at this point I found bars and restaurants and culture that's helped me appreciate Times Square. But no trip down here would be complete without walking around the center of the square super late at night and talking to the many characters who inhabit this world. First off on the corner of Broadway, and there's a street car vendor who really does look lot like Bill Murray. And when he tells you he can make you a quote special hot dog for ten dollars, you should definitely say yes, what you want? What what did you put on the thing? You gave me? Dot dog? Okay, I give you onion, I give you a preto, give a little bit of chicken. Do you as a chicken? That's what it was. Chicken's going You're coming bad for me? Okay? Yeah. I liked what he made me so much. Honestly, I stuck around and helped him wrangle a few new customers. You will not get a better meal for twenty dollars. Yeah, probably give me I don't work for this guy. We're just pryding. Do not really? How long have you been doing this for? Yeah? Then you it's also worth playing. Asked with Duffy Squares chess master Darrel, who very abruptly left me in charge of watching his whole entire set up, which was like two tables and boards and clocks right in the middle of times square right back two seconds. What are you going to block? I'm gonna say the minute, I'm gonna grab something. You know, boy, what am I gonna do with Somebody's like kho want to please chess? Like just stay here and they want to play Thomas sit there, Okay, I know I'm I'm watching this chess master's boards for him. Yeah, I know. You don't say I'm gonna leave you with all my stuff that I have fun lifts at six years old. I'm sorry. People were asking me, hey, what are you doing here? We're playing? What people ask you on the Phone's guys over there? What's to ask you? Yeah, there's going on? What did you tell him? So? On the subject of public bathrooms, the biggest and nicest public restrooms can be found on the eighth floor of the Marriott Marquis. Just walk in like you're supposed to be there and make a bee line for the elevator. Don't travel in big packs, and don't make eye contact with anyone that works there. Okay, back to the streets. Yeah, hey, let's wits man. Oh yeah, And of course I had to speak with some of the Squares resident superheroes. Spider Man, how's it going, how's it gone? What's your experience working in Times Square? It's pretty It's pretty amazing, it's pretty's pretty fun. I tell people, if you want to make money out here, literally be you're inner child and express how you would, what you love to do, and the money will come to you and attracts to you. For me, I love dusting up a Spider Man. So I've been doing it now for the last three months and I make at least nice hundred hundred a night. It was a couple of fighting man and woman and just got out of hand, out of nowhere. Guy came out with a knife to protect the girl. God mean, Spider Man rent into the streets to be like Zeros. No way real life superheroes do. We're taking a picture of the front of Starbucks here, makes no sense. I need to go back to Jimmy's after a great night's sleep. The next day, I met back up with Tom Harris, the president of the Time Score Alliance, and Regina FOAs, who was the vice president in chief of staff. I found them in the Walgreens at One Time Square, where I would conclude my mission in a very famous location. We're gonna get a workout. We're gonna be walking up a couple of flights. Okay, I brought my hailer just in case I was kidding. No, I did, but I won't. He did thousands of Waterford Crystal triangles and bolted to six seventy two led modules which you're attached to the change every year. Well why are they changed every years? Wow? Wow, there is damn that is so cool. Do you ever get sick of doing this? No? Never yet? The top of one Time Square with the ball. This is great. We're excited that you were able to join us. And uh, if any of your your listeners want to come create their new Time Square memories were open. Reflecting on my journey just feet below the legendary New Year's evall, I have to say it one more time for everyone on the streets. All the people in the back, or just anyone who zoned out through this podcast. I heart Time Square and you should too. I think I'm gonna be good at Tacos exactly. Yeah. This show was produced by myself and me a fast, edited and mixed by the other worldly Dean White and Abbey Austria. Special thanks to all of My boss is, Jim Demiko, Megan kirchh Brett Kushner, and Emily Felt. That's it for us. We are taking the week of Thanksgiving off, but we'll be back in December. Hope to see there by.

I'm Will Fulton, and this is thrill est explored. What does Time Square look like a bunch of lights? Looks like daytime, no matter what time it is. What does it sound like there are noises, seven alarms, people yelling at you, music playing from different shops. Would it smell like exhaust, street meat, a bunch of different cologns and perfumes mixing together. I have tomit. I don't really like Time Square. That was me just two days ago. But this is me two hours ago. All right, I have to be honest with you. I love Times Square. There's great bars, solid food, and there is always weird ship happening. Sorry, that's white, Paul. If you look inside of the Cristo, you will see this game of colors. Okay, yeah, can you imagine inside it's all in Cristo. That's pretty cool, right, it's crazy sizzle Chi chicken is good. You're coming back for me? Yeah. I got in the front page of all the newspapers and New York Daily, Knew the New York Times for having a scuffle with the timesc Cops, scout on Stephen Colbert Report and the TMZ and everything. Yeah, there was a lot of yes, there was a lot of blood. Oh Times Square didn't change over the past forty eight hours, but I think I actually did. I had two days filled the towering neon screens, more than a few mid talent drinks, and one surprisingly competitive public chess match. When you sit in the gentleman activity of war chess, you're the best. That was just show you. I found an actual neighborhood hidden inside all the kitchen chaos of Times Square. They hired disasters. There are a lot of people that look like hired disasters here, and it's a surprisingly great place to spend time. Well, I'd say New Yorkers traditionally hate Times Square because I mean, in a way it's amateur hour for New York because you have to deal with that magical, wondrous energy that someone might be feeling. We're just trying to get to that block or get to work. I don't have the time and energy to deal with your you know, polyannic bullshit. This is say you. He's from Flushing, Queens, which is about and miles east of Times Square, but as thrillis New York editors, he basically spends his working life recommending things to do in New York and despite not having time rightfully for your Pollyona bullshit. He does actually like Times Square, especially right now with tourism down, Times Square isn't as crazy as it used to be. Even if I'm in Midtown nowadays, and if I've had a few drinks and you know, if I'm not ready to go home yet, I won't lie. I'll end up at Times Square, like at one in the morning, just to sit by myself and still get in. I have nothing but respect for Times Square, and I think a lot of people have, you know, this evolving relationship with it, just like they might do with New York, where you know, one day you love it, another day you hate it, another day you can't imagine yourself living somewhere else. I started this conversation with a trying to find a neighborhood it in New York City to cover for our show, and the fact that he brought up Times Square was frankly a big surprise. Times Square is called the Crossroads of the world for a reason. It's the most chaotic, over stimulated, packed to the gills portion of a city that's essentially already swarming with chaos. Okay, let's count how many people are taking selfies right now, one, now, two, three, I think well no, yep, oh, che's face timing four. It's gone through many ups and downs, but it's always, in many ways been the center of the city, a city that never sleeps. It's spinning Temple carries on into the dawn. New York, the Wonder City. The crown jewel of Times Square is a bow tie shaped pedestrian area from forty to forty seven Street between Broadway and Seventh Avenue, right in Midtown Manhattan, and strolling through, you'll see a canyon of blazing screens with towering supermodels in the sea these new sweaters. Right next to an actually giant, jolly green giant. You'll notice a story dedicated to M and M's an enormous H and M and the world's biggest and arguably nicest olive gardens. You'll bump into street performers. It's four of us hawkers knockoff Elmo's and Else's and for anyone from the nineties, you'll also see where they used to film TRL Do you remember that? And there's the m TV I have never seen anything like. Times Square is the show that never ends. Every forty five seconds Time Square changes, And I say forty five seconds because that's about the time it takes for a person to walk one block in Times Square. So every forty seconds is a new cast of characters, uh in this greatest show. That's Tom Harris. He's the president of the Times Square Alliance. It's his job to promote and maintain Times Square as a global destination, and he loves it here. Times Square is point one percent of the land mass in New York City. We are fifteen percent of the economic output for New York City. We really are the economic engine of this city. And last week over one point six million people walked through Times Square. So that is symbolic of our resolve and our recovery from this pandemic. Someone once said to me, when it is Time Square going to return to normal? And I said, normal is boring. Time Square is never normal. Times Square always rediscovers, reimagines itself, and it's a place where you never know what to expect. In the eighteen hundreds, it was called long Acre Square. Then the New York Times moved in and it became Time Square. But over the past fifty years is transformed from a sketchy hub of vice to the city center of tourism, surrounded by the always popular theater district AK Broadway, and probably most famous globally for the annual New Year's Eve ball drop. I've been going to Times Square my entire life, but I've never really dug any deeper than an occasional trip to the Wax Museum or maybe David Busters. So I wanted to dedicate a few days to really spending time in Times Square, to look beyond the souvenir shops and bubba gumps, to find the real people in the square, and to start What better litmus test for exploring neighborhood than embarking on a night of romantic dinner and drinks. Right, so Keller, Friday Night, date night in Times Square? The drumhout? Is this a date? I think it's a date. I don't know. I didn't wear my date out. You look great, so so I'm prompt you. Luckily, I do know there's at least one great as in Times Square for cocktails. Um, you can sit there, you can hold this disinfected Wow, Oh my god, I feel so official. Hey, nick, I have a microphone in my hand. Hello. My name is Kenneth McCoy on. The owner of the Rumhouse in Times Square in New York City. I grew up here. I lived here in my entire life. When you would come here in the eighties, I mean it was it was pretty rough, to be honest. I can remember being here as like, you know, like a fourteen year old kid and like trying to get fake. I d s. It's funny because I used to go to shows at the Edison Ballroom, which I guess and it's Heyday was like where Frank Sinatra would record and that sort of thing. When I say hey day, probably like in the forties or something, or in the fifties, where people would go see a show, go have a cocktail somewhere, go have dinner. I was like, you know what, maybe we could open up something like that. The Rumhouse is a cocktail bar connected to the Hotel Edison on West forty seven Street. It's right across from the Barrymore Theater, where currently giant photos of Matthew Roderick and Sarah Jessica Parker float above the sidewalk. The space inside is filled with darkwood features, deep maroon chairs and booths. There's a piano in the corner that sees plenty of action during the evenings. It basically screamed classic New York with some modern touches. Kenny himself wears a blazer with sneakers and a baseball cap. The one thing that I will say about this place that I love is that is a constant, total like variety of people. You've got like Morgan Stanley, business guys sitting next to a stage hand, sitting next to a theater director, an actor, a model, some musician, and then you've maybe got somebody in for a convention who's staying at a hotel around the corner. And when you kind of put them all in the room together, it's it's quite interesting. Along with expertly mixed cocktail else like the cold brew rum and egg white containing star Fucker. The Rumhouse has a reputation for being an excellent place to catch some raucous live music in an intimate space. On any given night, you might stumble in and find some musicians fresh off Broadway and they'll do anything from like Radiohead to like Ella Fitzgerald. And for movie buffs, you might recognize the Rumhouse from the Oscar winning Alejandro and Yarit film Birdman. There are people who stroll by you will hear them and they'll go that's the Birdman Bar. Or there's people that walk in, take a picture, and walk out. You know. Michael Keaton's been in a bunch of times And I forget the actress's name that was in there. I am a Stone. She was in here one night with Bill Murray and they were playing piano. The Rumhouse is the kind of place that will make you think maybe there is something cool happening in Times Square. I mean, I think for a long time Times Square had a bad rap. It definitely has a lot more of a shiny sort of Disney field to it. But I do think that there are places to see here. I do think there's something worth coming to see. I think it's also just part of New York City history. Joe Allen's around the corner. I think that's a wonderful bar, has a wonderful old New York field to it. It's been there probably for at least twenty five years, you know, and that's on restaurant Row, where there's probably a lot of other places that are a little like, oh yeah, that's a tourist trap, but that place is great. Man. So after a couple of star fuckers. We took Kenneth's advice and went to Joe Allen's on Restaurant Row. It's a couple of steps below street level and totally cavernous, filled with men in Fedora's dining alone, couples seemingly about the go catch the show and now us. I think if you were like a theater geek into musicals, this is a great place because a lot of these posters are I assume, like old school Broadway posters. Joe Ellen's is the type of classic New York place that really can't be considered a hidden gem, but it's definitely the type of spot that you won't find on any best restaurant list. It's not trendy, but it is a fantastic, unpretentious place to post up at the bar with a martini and eat one of the most underrated burgers in town. And they gave you a ton of wine. Yeah yeah. When eating out in Times Square, you have to be a little selective, as many of the places around are geared towards ripping off tourists. But for lunch or an early dinner, you can head to forty seven and six for some stellar kosher Uzbek food at tom Toop, which is on the second floor above a Diamond District jewelry store. For something super quick and small, you can't do better than the diminutive Los Tacos number one on forty three and seven. You will have to brave a kind of long line no matter what time it is, but trust me, it is worth it, alright. So Joe Allens is a big success, right, definitely, great burger, great dates. So far. I would say, are you actually gonna use this? I'm totally going to use this? And now what are we gonna do? We're gonna walk around Time Square a little bit. Yeah, let's gonna see the lights. Yeah, lightly, we headed out into the bright lights of Times Square to soak in some local culture and hey, even a little bit of art. Here we are, we're in the middle. What's that? I know exactly what that is, I really do. What she's looking at and what many people are looking at is a twelve foot tall of pink and purple statue that actually houses an interior fountain. It's an art installation by the artist Pamela Council called The Fountain for Survivors. On the exterior, it is adorned with four hundred thousand acrylic nails in these beautiful mosaic patterns that were all placed by hand. This is Gene Cooney. She's the director of Public Art for Times Square. She helped facilitate this installation which your ring right now, and all the artwork you see in Times Square, it's pretty beautiful. Actually, you know why present art in Times Square? I think people look to Times Square. It's an incredibly iconic place and it holds a lot of power in that sense, and so to hand that platform over to artists, I think is incredibly important. Jean and her team work hard to incorporate a layer of culture on top of what most people might consider New York's least culturally viable area. Yes, so Max Newhouses, Times Square. It's an unmarked sound installation um at the north end of a triangular pedestrian plaza right at basically forty six in Broadway, and it is very easy to miss. It is a piece that was installed initially in nine underneath the grates of this plaza. It's a humming sound and it's it's a low reverberation. It feels as though it could be part of the city escape and the soundscape of the streets, but it has this kind of warmer, almost unfamiliar tone to it that once it stands out, it's kind of really a pleasure to hear. But Jean admittedly also enjoys Times Square for some less highbrow reasons. It's almost a judgment free zone, which is kind of a hard space to find in New York. A handful of friends and I went semi ironically to Send Your Frogs on a Saturday night, and we ended up having the absolute best time for that very reason that that complete lack of pretension and no one is laughing at you because you have a balloon hat on. I mean, at one point the service staff and the guests all got up in a conga line. It was a blast. Send Your Frogs sadly is closed now, but luckily there are still places around the area to secure a pretension free late night drink. I think I'm gonna get to Lindsay Lohan cocktail. The Russian Vodka Room on West fifty seven is a lounge featuring casks of infused vodka. So where to drink some vodka? Right, Yeah, which like doesn't really go with the wrong That was hours ago. My mom told me never to mix. And some really great Russian dumplings and a variety of live show tuny music. But the Russian Vodka room is another place you won't find them many travel guides though. It's so so great for people watching and having a nightcap in midtown. Okay, fair enough, I've just like discussions like liquidated into a cocktown. It was a perfect end to a surprisingly great Time Squared dates. Do you think that overall this has been a fun date in Times Square? I always like to come to Test Square with you. Thank you. On that note, we're going to take a quick break. But when we get back, we go to the dive bar that somehow has lasted in Times Square and we'll hear from two very very famous people. Let's stick around. So the next morning, I actually had a work call with two friends of mine, and I thought i'd asked them about Times Square, I mean people watching. I've been down there for New Year's and the people watching is probably one of the most made you find the most eclectic mix of folks. Yeah, I remember it. The first time I went to New York was in Montrose and it just blew my mind. I mean, I I thought I just went to heaven. I'm man, this is it going to give it anything? To see a Montrose in New York concert chiefs lost my night. Okay, so full disclosure. The friends I'm talking about our guy Fieri and Sammy Hagar, formerly of Van Haley. I was talking to them about their actually pretty great tequila Santo for an article, but naturally I steered us towards Times Square to see if they had any advice, as two worldly men like themselves would. It is crazy, you do, don't get any wrong. You really do need to know the lay of the land from everybody I know that goes on a regular basis. They they love it um and New York just has so much to offer. I mean, it really is probably one of the greatest destinations in the world for food and for entertainment. There is everything from the street performers to Broadway to the concerts. I mean, they got it going on. One thing to do carry a flask with some Santo in it, So I'm actually not supposed to bring flasks to work stuff anymore, but I did the next best thing. Surprisingly, there's a pretty cool and old and not pretentious dive bar right in the middle of Times Square. It's easy to miss if you don't know where to look. My name is Michael and a bartender here. Were you fans park freework games? Very much? Years? I mean, you know, if you come to Times Greeny the Jimmies, because where else you're gonna gonna go. It's really it's the best part in the neighborhood. Prices achieved, people are nice, you get great conversations. It's a real bar. Uh My boss always says it's a neighborhood bar without neighborhood. On West Street, less than a hundred yards from the center of Times Square, you'll find a small bar with an old blue awning, tucked between hotels and parking garages and nondescript Irish pots. This is Jimmy's Corner, not only one of the best bars in the area, one of the best bars in the entire city. I remember the blackout in two thousand three. Me and my mom bartended that entire night. My dad was here. We worked together, the busiest night that Jimmy's ever had. And we're the only place open because we're the only place to keep our beer cold. Being the three of us like in here working. We worked till six in the morning. That that may be one of my best memories because I just it's when I learned to be a bartender. And it's also like the first experience that I had with my parents where they really were like, oh, you could run this place. Adam Glenn, who I'm speaking with at a table in the back of the bar, is a graduate of Harvard Law School. He runs a boxing managerial company and now he also runs Jimmy's, which reopened a few months ago. It's been closed for the majority of the past two years after being opened since the early seventies. So my parents met here. My mom was a bartender here before it was Jimmy's. My dad wasn't in the bar business. He was actually in the hat and wig business and in boxing. He has this seventy year career in boxing as a manager and trainer in cut band. Just like a general good person, Like people come to me and say, I only met your dad once or twice, but like what he told me at night or what he said meant a lot to me. And you know, this bar has allowed that, It's facilitated that Jimmy Glenn, Adam's dad was friends with Muhammad Ali, he was a local New York City celebrity. Eventually he bought the bar where he met his future wife, and it became an institution in itself. Last year, at the age of eighty nine, he passed away from complications due to covid Adam's mother, who was originally from Poland, passed away several years earlier. But for him, Jimmy's is more than a bar. It's basically his home. We see Thanksgiving dinner here. We you know, I'd be here too in the morning, playing checkers with my dad, like when I was ten years old. So there's so much of my family history here that it just it feels great being in here. I missed, you know. People ask me like, oh, is it hard because you miss your dad. I missed my dad all the time, Like I feel closer to him here than when I'm anywhere else. And I know how much she loved this place. Like, you know, when I reopened this place, it was one of the prouder things I've done because I know how happy my parents would have been, like reopening the place and getting back to it as such, it would have been such a huge deal for them. The drinks here costs three to five dollars. Mostly The jukeboxes filled with old Motown standards. The walls of the space are covered with boxing posters, including a Rumble in the Jungle print that Jimmy purchased himself at the actual fight in Zaire. There's countless newspaper clippings and plenty of photos of famous regulars. I remember, like Drew Barrymore used to come here in her like early twenties when she was it lark like party days, but I was I was in middle school and I came out of the paper and all my friends are like, when can we go? Because like everyone had a crush on Drew beara war and it's like one you can't to, Like, I don't think she wants to be bothered by a bunch of middle schoolers. De Niro used to come here, so he made them shoot up part of Raging Bowl in this bar and Adam still lives in Times Square, just a couple of blocks away. He's seen the area change from a gritty neighborhood to a tourist attraction, but he still believes it's very much worth seeing. Should you still go see it? Like, yes, of course you should. It's something to see and it's something to experience, and the idea that you know, the greatest theater and music in the world is right here, and some of the best food in the world is right here, and you're going to avoid it because they're tourists here, like tourists go to places that are good usually, Like you know, when I go to other cities, I don't skip the touristy things because oh, it's going to be crowded. What makes New York special is the fact that everything is compacted, it's put together, and it's like what I love about New York that rich, rich and poor aren't separated, Black, white, Hispanic, they're not separated. You see all those people every single day. That's part of Times Square. Like everywhere you go, you're gonna see everything. Like I just I love this city and this is an integral part of the city. And Jimmy's hopefully will always be an integral part of Times Square. Every time I walk through that door, even though my parents aren't here, they're here with me. And so everywhere I look around the bar, I see them, like my mom greeting me when I come in, my dad's sitting. This is exactly what it's been for seventy years. Right. We've fixed a few things and we've changed a few things, but for the most part, we're the same place, and we have the same spirit in the place. So at this point I found bars and restaurants and culture that's helped me appreciate Times Square. But no trip down here would be complete without walking around the center of the square super late at night and talking to the many characters who inhabit this world. First off on the corner of Broadway, and there's a street car vendor who really does look lot like Bill Murray. And when he tells you he can make you a quote special hot dog for ten dollars, you should definitely say yes, what you want? What what did you put on the thing? You gave me? Dot dog? Okay, I give you onion, I give you a preto, give a little bit of chicken. Do you as a chicken? That's what it was. Chicken's going You're coming bad for me? Okay? Yeah. I liked what he made me so much. Honestly, I stuck around and helped him wrangle a few new customers. You will not get a better meal for twenty dollars. Yeah, probably give me I don't work for this guy. We're just pryding. Do not really? How long have you been doing this for? Yeah? Then you it's also worth playing. Asked with Duffy Squares chess master Darrel, who very abruptly left me in charge of watching his whole entire set up, which was like two tables and boards and clocks right in the middle of times square right back two seconds. What are you going to block? I'm gonna say the minute, I'm gonna grab something. You know, boy, what am I gonna do with Somebody's like kho want to please chess? Like just stay here and they want to play Thomas sit there, Okay, I know I'm I'm watching this chess master's boards for him. Yeah, I know. You don't say I'm gonna leave you with all my stuff that I have fun lifts at six years old. I'm sorry. People were asking me, hey, what are you doing here? We're playing? What people ask you on the Phone's guys over there? What's to ask you? Yeah, there's going on? What did you tell him? So? On the subject of public bathrooms, the biggest and nicest public restrooms can be found on the eighth floor of the Marriott Marquis. Just walk in like you're supposed to be there and make a bee line for the elevator. Don't travel in big packs, and don't make eye contact with anyone that works there. Okay, back to the streets. Yeah, hey, let's wits man. Oh yeah, And of course I had to speak with some of the Squares resident superheroes. Spider Man, how's it going, how's it gone? What's your experience working in Times Square? It's pretty It's pretty amazing, it's pretty's pretty fun. I tell people, if you want to make money out here, literally be you're inner child and express how you would, what you love to do, and the money will come to you and attracts to you. For me, I love dusting up a Spider Man. So I've been doing it now for the last three months and I make at least nice hundred hundred a night. It was a couple of fighting man and woman and just got out of hand, out of nowhere. Guy came out with a knife to protect the girl. God mean, Spider Man rent into the streets to be like Zeros. No way real life superheroes do. We're taking a picture of the front of Starbucks here, makes no sense. I need to go back to Jimmy's after a great night's sleep. The next day, I met back up with Tom Harris, the president of the Time Score Alliance, and Regina FOAs, who was the vice president in chief of staff. I found them in the Walgreens at One Time Square, where I would conclude my mission in a very famous location. We're gonna get a workout. We're gonna be walking up a couple of flights. Okay, I brought my hailer just in case I was kidding. No, I did, but I won't. He did thousands of Waterford Crystal triangles and bolted to six seventy two led modules which you're attached to the change every year. Well why are they changed every years? Wow? Wow, there is damn that is so cool. Do you ever get sick of doing this? No? Never yet? The top of one Time Square with the ball. This is great. We're excited that you were able to join us. And uh, if any of your your listeners want to come create their new Time Square memories were open. Reflecting on my journey just feet below the legendary New Year's evall, I have to say it one more time for everyone on the streets. All the people in the back, or just anyone who zoned out through this podcast. I heart Time Square and you should too. I think I'm gonna be good at Tacos exactly. Yeah. This show was produced by myself and me a fast, edited and mixed by the other worldly Dean White and Abbey Austria. Special thanks to all of My boss is, Jim Demiko, Megan kirchh Brett Kushner, and Emily Felt. That's it for us. We are taking the week of Thanksgiving off, but we'll be back in December. Hope to see there by.