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In order to comply with the Times Square lighting regulations, Lehman continued to run the sign, but it kept only the most literal-minded images—the suspension bridge and the gallery of pedestrians— and ran them over and over until it was difficult to remember why the sign had been worth caring about in the first place. It was understandable that after the tremendous shock of 9/11, and the sheer logistical challenge of moving, reprogramming the sign was not exactly a top priority. Nevertheless, the bank hired Roger Dean, the Morgan executive who had been responsible for the engineering on both the sign at 1585 Broadway and the new one. When I went to see Dean in early 2002, he explained that Lehman had decided to at least temporarily strip away all the “foreground” images of data and graphics and to keep those few “background” images with which company officials felt comfortable. He had hired a new programmer, who had worked on the technical aspects of the new sign. He felt confident that Lehman would not reduce the sign to a commercial. “I don’t get the feeling at the moment that we’re likely to be blatant about it,” he said. “There’s enough blatancy in Times Square, and I personally would like to be removed from that.”

The new programming went up in the summer of 2002; I stood in front of Starbucks to take a look. The words “Lehman Brothers” covered most of the building, save for two panels on which appeared the phrase “Where Vision Gets Built,” apparently the company’s rather awkward motto, since it was followed by a trademark sign. Then a background of blue mosaic tiles appeared, and once again the giant words “Lehman Brothers,” this time sliding by as cutouts composed of the tiles. Then a mighty sea crashed against rocks; then “Lehman Brothers,” and “Where Vision,” etc., once again. Then came the bridge stretching over the sea, then rolling surf, then the company logo again, then the bridge, then a great mass of clouds, then the logo again, and then the blue tiles. I had had enough.

I called Roger Dean and asked how the corporate advertising squared with his antiblatancy pledge. “I don’t know if I would consider it advertising,” he said lamely. He was plainly uncomfortable. He added that his responsibility was “purely on the technical side.” This was true, though it also seemed plain that he had lost some internal battle. “Our thinking has obviously developed,” he said, and then asked, or rather pleaded, that I direct any further questions to Tony Zehnder, Lehman’s head of corporate communications. Zehnder seemed utterly mystified by my sense of forfeited possibility. He said, “We took the content that Morgan Stanley had for the sign and we pared it down to what we thought were usable images, and we put our name on to identify the name of the building. That’s what the sign is for the moment.”

I called the new programmer, Steven Heimbold. Months earlier, he had been cautiously hopeful that Lehman would let him do something as inventive as Imaginary Forces had done. But they hadn’t. “Lehman Brothers has not really embraced the sign in any way like Morgan Stanley,” he admitted. “The imagery they want is more generic. They’re not really looking for any higher meaning other than looking at the sign.” Heimbold, like Dean, was having trouble being the good corporate soldier. “The public,” he said, “really hasn’t seen it in its full glory.”

Might they someday? Zehnder had, after all, said “for the moment.” A different moment could come, and all of the elaborate wiring and computer hardware would be there inside the building waiting to be used. One of the saving graces of Times Square is that nothing is forever.

20.

à LA RECHERCHE DES FRIED CLAMS PERDUS

UNLIKE THE STRIP in Las Vegas, or the E-Walk in Los Angeles, or the countless malls and festival markets and converted train stations all across this great nation, Times Square is full of old places—and, especially, of old places that do the same thing they did when they were new. Indeed, the building of all the new stuff, the office