Pack up these pedestrian playpens

Mayor Michael Bloomberg closed Broadway from 47th down to 42d Street, and 35th to 33d at Herald Square, to provide unique new pedestrian space and, I don't get this part, ease midtown traffic flow. Gone suddenly was the loud, dissonant Manhattan symphony of beeps and horns and epithets hurled with uncommon artistry. Gone too was the urban aroma of exhaust and the overcrowded square's sidewalks.

Gone, in short, were the storied kinetics that define the square that defines the city.

What those of us interested parties from afar have seen through online video and photo galleries this week is a strange landscape located somewhere between emptiness and tranquility. We can see stretches of bald asphalt, and a lot of people sprawled alone in cheap lawn chairs contemplating their navels and watching the world go 'round. There are the snoozers, the laptop people, the eaters of takeout breakfasts and lunches. Singletons and couples roam the new area, testing its effect on their senses.

Most of those interviewed on video were ecstatic about the closure. Now they have a huge new city playground, and it's not just another sad piece of turf penned in by a chain-link fence. They have Times Square. This is to be the ultimate asphalt park amid the backdrop of the most famous intersection in the world. Make it and people will come.

At least some. Drivers are livid at the closure, and who can blame them? Their lives instantly went from bad to worse. Contemplate a midtown run at rush hour around the square if you're heading north or south. Vaya con Dios.

We heard interviews with some cabbies who were unamused. These were the calmer ones who issued invective-free denunciations. But we know the rest of them - truck drivers and pedicab drivers, too - must have unloaded some gloriously unprintable street poetry. All in all, I'm liking what's shaping up to be a rumble between the drivers and the mayor.

I dwell on the change at Times Square because it makes me think of Downtown Crossing here in Boston. In 1978, the city transformed the madhouse around the intersection of Washington and Summer Streets into a traffic-free zone, with a few exceptions. It was to be an urban Eden for pedestrians, people of all stripes who could catch their breath, grab a sandwich, and take in a bit of the city before lumbering off to their next appointment. It made perfect sense. It had to. It was the best thinking du jour of our urban planners.

Downtown Crossing, as we all know, has been an abject failure. The vitality of the place was sapped with the departure of cars. It suddenly lacked the density provided by auto traffic to give it spine. There have also been chronic problems with crime. Until recently, there had been a mounted police officer on his horse for years at Washington and Summer. The store mix is retrograde. The final indignity occurred last November, when construction of a huge development play in the Filene's block was halted because funding dried up.

But the larger point is that well-intentioned pedestrian playpens can and do backfire. Like politics, each one comes with its own local calculus. The bottom line is that cities need density. That's what they're all about. If you don't like density, go live in Dunstable. For traffic relief, there are parks. New York has Central Park nearby. Boston has the Common a long block away.

So I say to Mayor Tom Menino: Tommy, do the right thing. Bring back the cars. Save Downtown Crossing. We've learned the hard way that the pedestrian thing doesn't work there.

And to Bloomberg from an admirer: Mikey, don't do it. Times Square thrives off its sound and light show, not an inert herd in lawn chairs. It needs its chaos. The good news is the closure is an experiment through the end of the year and then will be evaluated. Look, I long for creative city government that tries a million ideas to see what works, but, please, let's put this thing in the rear-view mirror. The a priori assumption that a pedestrian mall will improve urban life needs a good looking at.

I cannot end this column without a word about the Clarkster - that zany guy who goes by the name Clark Rockefeller. I refer to him as Clark rather than his given name, Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, because I'm writing about a fake. It is the fake who has made yet another depressing intramural family tragedy into a puny international story. Christian Karl would be back with the obits.

As has been widely reported, the outcome of his trial for allegedly kidnapping his 7-year-old daughter last year hinges on the success or failure of his insanity defense. I love the insanity defense. It rarely works but it's always fun to watch. It basically says, I must have been insane when I did it because no sane person would have done what I did. That's a beautiful thing.

The insanity defense also reminds me of the classic Jonathan Winters skit in which he plays a psychiatrist. The patient sits down and begins talking. Winters suddenly stands up and says: "Get out of my office. You're crazy."

Sam Allis can be reached at allis@globe.com.