Microsoft builds largest win­dows phone ever in middle of NYC.

Bang in the middle of one of New York City’s more pop­u­lar out­door pic­nic areas, Her­ald Square, just a few feet away from the world’s largest Macy’s store, Microsoft this week unveiled a 55 foot tall ‘mobile phone’.

The event was to draw atten­tion to the launch of three new Win­dows Phones — the Sam­sung Focus S, Focus Flash and HTC Radar 4G, based on Win­dows Phone 7.5.

Obvi­ously the large ‘phone’ is not a phone in any mean­ing­ful sense — large tiled screens dis­play video feeds trans­mit­ted from a con­trol room, and move out of place to accom­mod­ate live stage per­form­ances. (A mid­day calis­then­ics ses­sion appeared to be a sur­pris­ingly hit with both loc­als and tour­ists, but watch­ing Microsoft host­ing a Far East Move­ment con­cert did smack of watch­ing your dad try­ing to dance…)

There were func­tion­ing Win­dows Phones on hand as well, in a make­shift show­room, though they weren’t quite as pop­u­lar as the six stor­ies high ver­sion. Judge for yourself…