A walk through Times Square typically requires a high tolerance for exasperation, and even more so when it is spent in the company of Gil Faizon and George St. Geegland.

These two Upper West Siders are cantankerous companions who kvetch about anything that seems different than they remember it. Their exact age is hard to place — their familiarity with Broadway lore and the administration of Mayor Abe Beame would put them somewhere in their 70s — but they have lived in New York long enough to find a lot to be confused by and to complain about.

During one such stroll on a humid, crowded August afternoon, Mr. Faizon, dressed in a leather coat and untied shoes, paused to observe a 46th Street billboard showing a dog clenching a phone in its jaws.

“Everything’s a screen now,” he said in an adenoidal tone. “It’s like 24/7 news.”

Mr. St. Geegland, who was wearing a heavy sweater, seemed to believe he was looking at a Broadway advertisement. “I haven’t seen ‘Hold the Phone,’ but I heard it’s great,” he said. “The dog wrote the show but the understudy’s a better singer.”