Cindy gets herself worked up real good about the new pedestrian Times Square

With apologies to everyone from Whitefish, Mont., I'm sure. And why now finally? Did she just notice?

[C]ould someone please kindly tell me what the frig is happening in Times Square? Why in the middle of what is Earth's most famous urban tourist attraction -- aside from possibly seeing Brad Pitt's boxers -- are people now lying around on cheapo, crappo, junko lawn chairs?

I'm told our Department of Transportation commissioner is a very nice lady. Good to her family, donates to charity, works for the care and feeding of aging, homeless manicurists. Has a lovely-sounding hyphenated name, Janette Sadik-Khan, but . . . I mean, turning Broadway into Rockaway?

The hallway to the Street of Dreams is now Beach 34th Street? What's next? Sand? A boardwalk?

Wide-eyed tourists with cameras come from all over the planet to see the sights, look at the lights, feel the excitement, sense the thrill. To know the noise, the signs, the din, the hubbub, the action, the life. To tell their friends back home in Whitefish, Mont., or downtown Albania that they've actually, personally seen the buzz, the busyness, the traffic, the organized hysteria that is no place else in the universe but Times Square.

Now they see what? Sprawling, bused-in out-of-towners with Coke cans and brown paper bags flat out on camp chairs noshing and burping and snoozing and playing checkers in the center of the capital of the world.

Here's the whole shebang.