Love it or hate it, Times Square is undeniably one of New York’s most iconic places. Here, nine little-known facts about the crossroads of the world.
The iconic building at One Times Square is best known for the New Years Eve ball drop, and in fact, there’s little else there. It was originally constructed as the New York Times Times Times Headquarters in 1904, back when the area was largely undeveloped. Lehman Brothers bought the building in 1995, and turned it into the giant billboard it is today. Jamestown Properties, which rents out the three bottom floors and the top floor, where the New Year’s Eve ball is stored year-round, currently owns it. Most of the floors are vacant, covered in graffiti and decrepit, but the billboards generate over $23 million per year.
The area we know as Times Square was called Longacre Square until the Times moved their headquarters there in 1904, though they outgrew the building in 1913. Despite the name, it’s not a square at all. Anyone who’s been there knows it’s actually a triangle because Broadway intersects the grid on a diagonal.
You would never know it now that the streets have been totally Disneyfied, but in the 1960s ‘70s, and ‘80s prostitutes, peep shows, and adult movie palaces plagued Times Square. Drug use and crime were rampant. This was the New York of Taxi Driver, when both tourists and locals avoided the area because it was one of the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods. In 1981, Rolling Stone called West 42nd Street the “sleaziest block in America.”
It’s almost impossible to notice, but there’s a permanent sound installation emanating from a subway grate. Go to the triangular area between 45th and 46th Streets and Broadway and listen closely. Artist Max Neuhaus created a textured layering of sounds that plays on a loop 24 hours a day. The installation is maintained by the Dia Foundation, which is behind Dia Beacon and several other quirky art installations around the city.
Next time you’re passing through the 42nd Street Times Square subway station, be sure to look up at the mural by pop artist Roy Lichtenstein. A native New Yorker, Lichtenstein—whose paintings appear at MoMA, the Met, and beyond—jumped at the chance to create a public piece for the subway. Inspired by comic strips, it depicts a futuristic train shooting through an underground station.