Description
Times Square is the crossroads of Broadway, Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan: a bowtie-shaped plaza blazing with giant screens, crowded with theatergoers and tourists at any hour, and the hub of the Theater District. About 50 million people visit every year.
Go after dark, when the signs turn night into day and the whole square glows. Then climb the red steps of the TKTS booth in Duffy Square, the northern triangle, where same-day Broadway tickets have been sold since 1973.
The old Times tower, One Times Square, stands at the southern tip. Its roof holds the New Year's Eve ball, and its walls are covered in screens. Around the square are Broadway theaters, flagship stores and a pedestrian plaza with seats to rest in.
In most cities the rules limit how much light a building may give off. Times Square sets a minimum: since 1987 the law has required its buildings to carry big, bright signs, officially called "spectaculars."
And it is not even a square. Until 1904 it was Longacre Square, the center of the city's horse-carriage trade. Then a newspaper moved in. That year The New York Times opened its new tower here, and its publisher, Adolph Ochs, persuaded the mayor to build a subway station and rename the square.
On New Year's Eve 1907 a ball dropped from the Times tower for the first time. It still does, before about a million people. In August 1945 some two million crowded in when the news ticker announced Japan's surrender.
Then came the dark years. From the 1960s to the early 1990s Times Square meant peep shows and porn theaters, and in 1981 Rolling Stone called 42nd Street "the sleaziest block in America."
The 1990s cleanup, with Disney restoring the New Amsterdam Theatre, brought back families, shops and offices, and critics complained of a "Disneyfied" square. Since 2009 Broadway's lanes here have been a pedestrian plaza; its first seats were cheap plastic lawn chairs.
Don't miss
• The square after dark.
• The red steps of the TKTS booth.
• One Times Square.
Did you know?
• The corner of Broadway and 42nd Street is the eastern end of the Lincoln Highway, the first road across the United States for motor vehicles.
• Fritz Lang saw Times Square in 1923 and drew on it for his film Metropolis.
• Between 45th and 46th Streets there is a permanent artwork you cannot see, only hear: a sound piece by Max Neuhaus.
Go after dark, when the signs turn night into day and the whole square glows. Then climb the red steps of the TKTS booth in Duffy Square, the northern triangle, where same-day Broadway tickets have been sold since 1973.
The old Times tower, One Times Square, stands at the southern tip. Its roof holds the New Year's Eve ball, and its walls are covered in screens. Around the square are Broadway theaters, flagship stores and a pedestrian plaza with seats to rest in.
In most cities the rules limit how much light a building may give off. Times Square sets a minimum: since 1987 the law has required its buildings to carry big, bright signs, officially called "spectaculars."
And it is not even a square. Until 1904 it was Longacre Square, the center of the city's horse-carriage trade. Then a newspaper moved in. That year The New York Times opened its new tower here, and its publisher, Adolph Ochs, persuaded the mayor to build a subway station and rename the square.
On New Year's Eve 1907 a ball dropped from the Times tower for the first time. It still does, before about a million people. In August 1945 some two million crowded in when the news ticker announced Japan's surrender.
Then came the dark years. From the 1960s to the early 1990s Times Square meant peep shows and porn theaters, and in 1981 Rolling Stone called 42nd Street "the sleaziest block in America."
The 1990s cleanup, with Disney restoring the New Amsterdam Theatre, brought back families, shops and offices, and critics complained of a "Disneyfied" square. Since 2009 Broadway's lanes here have been a pedestrian plaza; its first seats were cheap plastic lawn chairs.
Don't miss
• The square after dark.
• The red steps of the TKTS booth.
• One Times Square.
Did you know?
• The corner of Broadway and 42nd Street is the eastern end of the Lincoln Highway, the first road across the United States for motor vehicles.
• Fritz Lang saw Times Square in 1923 and drew on it for his film Metropolis.
• Between 45th and 46th Streets there is a permanent artwork you cannot see, only hear: a sound piece by Max Neuhaus.