Disquieted By Titties, New York Considers Shutting Down Times Square Plazas

Beset by bare bosoms, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday he’s considering closing down the pedestrian plazas in Times Square. The plazas—a collection of indescribably filthy metal tables marooned in an island of asphalt—are currently a popular place for exhausted, heat-stroked tourists to sink down as they fight back tears and frantically check their bank balances. But: titties.

Specifically, bare, paint-covered titties, belonging to women who are “annoying” tourists by posing for photos with them and then asking for payment, unlike back home, where bare-titted women take pictures with you for free to demonstrate their neighborliness and hometown pride.

Toplessness has been legal in New York state for every gender since 1992, and Times Square has been a fucking nightmare forever, a place where the porno theaters of yore ceded ground to a mostly-naked man will quite likely menace you with an acoustic guitar while a filthy, matted Cookie Monster gropes passing teens.

But today, Mayor de Blasio, responding to the outcry against the dozens of even-numbered titties, said the solution may be to remove the plazas, although they’ve been credited with calming traffic in the area.

“That’s a very big endeavor, and like every other option comes with pros and cons,” de Blasio said at a press conference in Queens, according to the New York Times. “So we’re going to look at what those pros and cons would be. You could argue that those plazas have had some very positive impacts. You could also argue they come with a lot of problems.” Pros like: fewer boobs. Cons like: I mean, yes, the tourists will be gone, but where will the topless women sit?

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton agrees, telling radio station 1010 WINS, “I’d prefer to just dig the whole damn thing up and put it back the way it was.” Presumably he means porn-palace era Times Square, where a variety of breasts were available, but only to customers who paid up front.

A tourist poses for a photo with four menaces, July 2015. Image via AP.