While visiting Mid-town Manhattan, I went to Times Square, the epicenter of human activity, to investigate how people add to the overall quality of space by adaptively using the space. I was surprised at what I found. It was not the adaptation I noticed but the lack of adapting. I suppose this lack of adaptation is the result of a combination of different aspects, partly good design and partly human behavior. To most, adaptions or the lack there of, are not noticeable but when you look closely at a space over time you will begin to notice them. I was surprised that the only obvious adaption I found in Times Square was people sitting on street curbs in the pedestrian areas but even these small adaptation can only be seen during peak tourists days when the designed seating areas are full. The most interesting find that I did not even notice until walking up and down Broadway a few times was the pedestrian movement is more concentrated on the sidewalks. Some may disagree with this statement but once you try walking on the sidewalk verses on the street in the pedestrian area, you will notice that it is much more difficult to navigate on the sidewalk then on the street. This may be caused subconsciously by the user after years of being told to walk on the sidewalk and not in the street. Even though this section of Broadway is now pedestrian only, it has all the elements of a traditional vehicular street. The concrete sidewalks, steel curb and asphalt (now painted blue) street pavement. Also, people feel safer crossing roads at crosswalks and each sidewalk ends in a crosswalk. Even though you can safely cross the streets that run transversely through Times Square from pedestrian area to the next without using the designated sidewalk crossing, people still feel safer with a traffic light and white lines saying it's OK to cross.
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