Ladies and gentlemen, your brand new traffic-less Times Square. Much less life-threatening now.

One of very favorite sites from an ever-rapidly disappearing Times Square: The old I. Miller Shoe Company on the northeast corner of West 46th Street and Times Square, a great shoe-supplier to the stage during the theatrical heyday of the 1920s, when close to a hundred theaters operated in the Times Square theater district. On the second floor of the building, Miller’s proprietors erected statues to his four favorite female performers: Ethel Barrymore as Ophelia, Marilyn Miller as Sunny, Mary Pickford as Little Lord Fauntleroy, and Rosa Ponselle as Norma. The statues are poised below an engraving of the store’s motto: ”The Show Folks Shoe Shop Dedicated to Beauty in Footwear.”