The scaffolding that hugs One Times Square, where the US Drug Enforcement Administration's travelling exhibition Target America: Traffickers, Terrorists and You is on view until 31 January, brings an added sense of decay to the building. During the tech boom of the mid-1990s, and the accompanying regeneration of the neighbourhood, One Times Square housed a Warner Brothers store, which sold stuffed cartoon animals, T-shirts and other brand merchandise. Now, the upper wooden portions of the scaffolding are plastered with posters advertising the exhibition in white letters on a severe black background. Much has been made of the return of drugs to tourist-friendly Times Square: much less of the aptness of using a building once owned by a movie studio to conjure a new view of the war on terror.

LRB 16 December 2004 | PDF Download