December 27, 2007
A Thought for Boxing Day (posted a day late)
Photo by Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times
I have been puttering around Times Square in the past week or two working on a column for the February issue of Metropolis. The other day, I finally checked out the monumental artwork in the lobby of the new New York Times Headquarters. What struck me about Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen’s Moveable Type, with its snippets of Timespeak displayed in illuminated vacuum-fluorescent letters, is that it takes the sort of informational cacophony one finds in Times Square and tames it, makes it tidy and elegant, suitable for display at the gateway to the Gray Lady. (Also, it seems pretty obvious that the newspaper’s old nickname suits the new Renzo Piano tower to a tee.)