Times Square New York City

Times Square New York City

When Manhattan Island was first settled by the Dutch, three small streams united near what is now 10th Avenue and 40th street. These three streams formed the "Great Kill" (Dutch: Grote Kill). From there the Great Kill wound through the low-lying Reed Valley, known for fish and waterfowl and emptied into a deep bay in the Hudson River at the present 42nd Street. The name was retained in a tiny hamlet, Great Kill, that became a center for carriage-making, as the upland to the south and east became known as Longacre.

Before and after the American Revolution, the area belonged to John Morin Scott, a general of the New York militia, in which he served under George Washington. Scott's manor house was at what is currently 43rd Street, surrounded by countryside used for farming and breeding horses. In the first half of the 19th century, it became one of the prized possessions of John Jacob Astor, who made a second fortune selling off lots to hotels and other real estate concerns as the city rapidly spread uptown.

By 1872, the area had become the center of New York's carriage industry. The area not having previously been named, the city authorities called it Long acre Square after Long Acre in London, where the horse and carriage trade in that city was centered. William Henry Vanderbilt owned and ran the American Horse Exchange there. In 1910 it became the Winter Garden Theater.

As more profitable commerce and industrialization of lower Manhattan pushed homes, theaters, and prostitution northward from the Tenderloin District, Long Acre Square became nicknamed the Thieves Lair for its rollicking reputation as a low entertainment district. The first theater on the square, the Olympia, was built by cigar manufacturer and impresario Oscar Hammerstein I. "By the early 1890s this once sparsely settled stretch of Broadway was ablaze with electric light and thronged by crowds of middle- and upper-class theater, restaurant and cafe patrons.
1900s–1930s

In 1904, New York Times publisher Adolph S. Ochs moved the newspaper's operations to a new skyscraper on 42nd Street at Long acre Square, on the site of the former Pabst Hotel, which had existed on the site for less than a decade. Ochs persuaded Mayor George B. McClellan, Jr. to construct a subway station there, and the area was renamed "Times Square" on April 8, 1904. Just three weeks later, the first electrified advertisement appeared on the side of a bank at the corner of 46th Street and Broadway. The north end later became Duffy Square, and the former Horse Exchange became the Winter Garden Theater.

The New York Times, according to Nolan, moved to more spacious offices west of the square in 1913. The old Times Building was later named the Allied Chemical Building. Now known simply as One Times Square, it is famed for the Times Square Ball drop on its roof every New Year's Eve.

In 1913, the Lincoln Highway Association, headed by entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, chose the intersection of 42nd Street and Broadway, at the southeast corner of Times Square, to be the Eastern Terminus of the Lincoln Highway, the first road across the United States, which originally spanned 3,389 miles (5,454 km) coast-to-coast through 13 states to its western end in Lincoln Park in San Francisco, California.

Times Square grew dramatically after World War I. It became a cultural hub full of theaters, music halls, and upscale hotels.

    Times Square quickly became New York's angora, a place to gather to await great tidings and to celebrate them, whether a World Series or a presidential election.
    — James Traub, The Devil's Playground: A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square

Advertising also grew significantly in the 1920s, growing from $25 million to $85 million over the decade. For example, the Wrigley Spearmint Gum sign, possibly the biggest electric sign "in the world," cost $9,000 per month to rent. Some contemporary critics, such as Thorstein Veblen and G.K. Chesterton, disliked the advertising at Times Square. Fritz Lang, after seeing Times Square in 1923, used it as inspiration for his dark industrial film Metropolis.

Celebrities such as Irving Berlin, Charlie Chaplin, and Fred Astaire were closely associated with Times Square in the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s. However, it was also during this period that the area began to be besieged by crime and corruption, in the form of gambling and prostitution; one case that garnered huge attention was the arrest and subsequent execution of police officer Charles Becker.
1930s–1950s
Crowds celebrating in Times Square on V-J Day (August 15, 1945)

The general atmosphere of Times Square changed with the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s. City residents moved uptown to cheaper neighborhoods, and many popular theaters closed, replaced by saloons, brothels, "burlesque halls, vaudeville stages, and dime houses." The area acquired a reputation as a dangerous and seedy neighborhood in the following decades.[citation needed]

Nevertheless, Times Square continued to be the site of the annual ball drop on New Year's Eve. The ball drop was placed on hiatus for New Year's Eve 1942 and 1943 due to wartime lighting restrictions during World War II. Instead, a moment of silence was observed at midnight in Times Square, accompanied by the sound of chimes played from sound trucks.

On May 8, 1945, a massive crowd celebrated Victory in Europe Day in Times Square; and on August 15, 1945, the largest crowd in the history of Times Square gathered to celebrate Victory over Japan Day. The victory itself was announced by a headline on the "zipper" news ticker at One Times Square, which read "*** OFFICIAL TRUMAN ANNOUNCES JAPANESE SURRENDER ***"; the six asterisks representing the branches of the U.S. Armed Forces.
1960s–1980s

From the 1960s to the early 1990s, the seediness of the area, especially due to its go-go bars, sex shops, peep shows and adult theaters, became an infamous symbol of the city's decline.
Times Square - 1977

As early as 1960, 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenue was described by The New York Times as "the 'worst' [block] in town". Times Square in that decade, as depicted in Midnight Cowboy, was gritty, dark and desperate, and it got worse in the 1970s and 1980s, as did the crime in the rest of the city. By 1984, an unprecedented 2,300 annual crimes occurred on that single block, of which 460 were serious felonies such as murder and rape.

At the time, since police morale was low, misdemeanors were allowed to go unpunished. William Bratton, who was appointed New York City Police Commissioner in 1994 and again in 2014, stated, "The [NYPD] didn't want high performance; it wanted to stay out of trouble, to avoid corruption scandals and conflicts in the community. For years, therefore, the key to career success in the NYPD, as in many bureaucratic leviathans, was to shun risk and avoid failure. Accordingly, cops became more cautious as they rose in rank, right up to the highest levels."As the city government did not implement broken windows theory at first, the allowance of low-profile crime was thought to have caused more high-profile crimes to occur. Formerly elegant movie theaters began to show porn, and hustlers were common. The area was so abandoned at one point during the time that the entire Times Square area paid the city only $6 million in property taxes, which is less than what a medium-sized office building in Manhattan typically would produce in tax revenue today in 1984 dollars.

In the 1980s, a commercial building boom began in the western parts of Midtown as part of a long-term development plan developed under Mayors Ed Koch and David Dink ins.
Madame Tussauds Wax Museum and Ripley's Believe It or Not! Auditorium are two of the newer attractions on the redeveloped 42nd Street.
1990s

In 1990, the state of New York took possession of six of the nine historic theaters on 42nd Street, and the New 42nd Street non-profit organization was appointed to oversee their restoration and maintenance. The theaters underwent renovation for Broadway shows, conversion for commercial purposes, or demolition.[40]

In 1992, the Times Square Alliance (formerly the Times Square Business Improvement District, or "BID" for short), a coalition of city government and local businesses dedicated to improving the quality of commerce and cleanliness in the district, started operations in the area.

In the mid-1990s, Rudolph Giuliani led an effort to clean up the area, an effort that is described by Steve Macekin in Urban Nightmares: The Media, the Right, And the Moral Panic Over the City: Security was increased, pornographic theaters were closed, and “undesirable” low-rent residents were pressured to relocate, and then more tourist-friendly attractions and upscale establishments were opened. Advocates of the remodeling claim that the neighborhood is safer and cleaner. Detractors have countered that the changes have homogenized or "Disneyfied" the character of Times Square and have unfairly targeted lower-income New Yorker's from nearby neighborhoods such as Hell's Kitchen.

Times Square now boasts attractions such as ABC's Times Square Studios, where Good Morning America is broadcast live, and competing Hershey's and M&M's stores across the street from each other, as well as multiple multiplex movie theaters. Additionally, the area contains restaurants such as Ruby Foo's, a Chinese eatery; the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, a seafood establishment; Planet Hollywood Restaurant and Bar, a theme restaurant; and Carmine's, serving Italian cuisine. It has also attracted a number of large financial, publishing, and media firms to set up headquarters in the area. A larger presence of police has improved the safety of the area.

The theaters of Broadway and the huge number of animated neon and LED signs have been one of New York's iconic images, as well as a symbol of the intensely urban aspects of Manhattan. The prevalence of such signage is because Times Square is the only neighborhood with zoning ordinances requiring building owners to display illuminated signs. The neighborhood actually has a minimum limit for lighting instead of the standard maximum limit. The density of illuminated signs in Times Square rivals that in Las Vegas. Officially, signs in Times Square are called "spectaculars", and the largest of them are called "jumbo trons." This signage ordinance was implemented in accordance with guidelines set in a revitalization program that New York Governor Mario Cuomo implemented in 1993.
The "Naked Cowboy" – who is not actually naked – has been a fixture on Times Square for decades

Notable signage includes the Toshiba billboard directly under the NYE ball drop and the curved seven-story NASDAQ sign at the NASDAQ MarketSite at 4 Times Square on 43rd Street and the curved Coca-Cola sign located underneath another large LED display owned and operated by Samsung. Both the Coca-Cola sign and Samsung LED displays were built by LED display manufacturer Daktronics. Times Square's first environmentally friendly billboard powered by wind and solar energy was first lit on December 4, 2008.[46] On completion, the 20 Times Square development will host the largest LED signage in Times Square at 18,000 square feet.[47] The display will be 1,000 square feet larger than the Times Square Walgreens display and one of the largest video-capable screen in the world.
2000s–present

In 2002, New York City's mayor, Rudy Giuliani, gave the oath of office to the city's next mayor, Michael Bloomberg, at Times Square after midnight on January 1 as part of the 2001–2002 New Year's celebration. Approximately 500,000 revelers attended. Security was high following the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, with more than 7,000 New York City police officers on duty in the Square, twice the number for an ordinary year.

Since 2002, the summer solstice has been marked by "Mind over Madness", a mass yoga event involving up to 15,000 people. Tim Tompkins, co-founder of the event, said part of its appeal was "finding stillness and calm amid the city rush on the longest day of the year".
TKTS booth at north end of Times Square
Times Square pedestrian plaza

On the morning of March 6, 2008, a small bomb caused minor damage, but there were no reported injuries.

On May 1, 2010, Times Square was evacuated from 43rd to 46th Streets following the discovery of a car bomb. It was found to be a failed bombing.

In February 2011, Times Square became smoke-free as New York extended the outdoors smoking ban to the area. The measure imposes a $50 fine for any person caught smoking within the area.

Between January 29 to February 1, 2014, a "Super Bowl Boulevard" was held on Broadway, especially in Times Square, between 34th and 47th Streets, in preparation for Super Bowl XLVIII celebrations. The boulevard contained activities such as autographs, a 60 feet (18 m)-high toboggan run, and photographs with the Vince Lombardi Trophy. The area was under increased security and saw over 400,000 people during the period.