Zsela Fire Excape (2024)
120 years ago, New York City rechristened the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue: Long Acre Square became Times Square. In essence, the name was derived from the New York Times, which had just relocated its headquarters to the intersection. The legend goes that before the relocation, Adolph S. Ochs, the publisher at the time, persuaded the mayor to have a subway station built there—which, after all, was actually built directly under the Times building and called Times Station. Quite "innocently" the New York Times wrote in the April 9, 1904 issue: "The choice of this name grew naturally out of the necessity of having a distinctive title for the subway station in the basement of The Times Building [...]. To have called the station 'Forty-second Street' would have been a source of endless confusion, since the Grand Central Station of the subway is also on Forty-second Street. The name 'Broadway Station' would have been open to the same objection, since there are many other subway stations on Broadway." Today, Times Square stands as one of the world's premier tourist attractions, drawing an estimated 50 million visitors annually. Despite its popularity among tourists, most New Yorkers have little regard for it. There are even forums on Quora and Reddit that are solely dedicated to hating the place. One commentator succinctly sums up this attitude: "It's like Las Vegas; back in the day it was unique. Then the corporations took over. Now it's just another marketing focal point banking off the charm it made way back then." But there are other voices too, Zsela’s for instance. The singer, who now lives in Los Angeles, says of Times Square: "Nobody cares about what you're doing. You can just be. And the energy of it—I felt good there. When I lived at my grandma's, I would just go out and run and sing—I didn't care; I wasn't going to run into anyone I knew.” Irrespective of whether it's Times Square or another spot, Zsela's anonymity might soon be a thing of the past anyway. At least, that's what the caliber of her latest single "Fire Excape" has us believe.
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