Street vendors along the Broadway corridors recently closed off to cars are singing a happy tune.
The spike in foot traffic means a boom in business for everyone from bagel vendors to those who walk around playing a guitar in their underwear.
"My business has quadrupled," Robert Burck, better known as "The Naked Cowboy," told The New York Post. "It is like New Year's Eve every day."
Broadway closed to vehicular traffic this week from 47th to 42nd streets in Times Square and between 35th and 33rd streets at Herald Square. The city believes the move will reduce pollution, cut down on pedestrian accidents and actually increase the flow of traffic.
Planners hope the uncontrolled chaos that has long defined the heart of the city will shift to a gentler landscape, one where a visitor could conceivably use the word "stroll" to describe getting from one side of Times Square to the other.
A hot-dog vendor named Kamel Abdelbkai said his have profits have jumped in just the first few days of the increased foot traffic.
"I'm looking forward to the summer when even more people are down here," he told The Post.
But you know it won't be long before more vendors make their way to the area to try to grab their piece of the pie. Pretzel salesman Oussunou Naisse, however, is not worried.
"We are part of a gentlemen's agreement," he told The Post. "It is a matter of respect from one vendor to another."
