50 Fun Facts About Times Square

Times Square lies in which part of Manhattan?

It is formed where Broadway crosses Seventh Avenue at 42nd Street; that diagonal cutting across the 1811 grid gives the plaza its bowtie shape.

Before 1904 the plaza was named after a London carriage-trade street. What was it called?

Longacre Square took its name from Long Acre in London; William Henry Vanderbilt ran the American Horse Exchange there.

Which New York Times publisher persuaded the mayor to rename the square and build a subway station in 1904?

The paper's new tower stood on the site of the short-lived Pabst Hotel; the first electrified ad appeared on a nearby bank three weeks later.

Roughly how many people pass through Times Square on an ordinary day?

On the busiest days it tops 460,000, and the square draws an estimated 50 million visitors a year.

Times Square is not a square at all; its shape is usually compared to what?

Two triangles meet at 45th Street; the northern one is officially Duffy Square.

Times Square's northern triangle honours Father Francis P. Duffy, who was what in WWI?

He was chaplain of New York's 'Fighting 69th' regiment; his statue by Charles Keck was dedicated in 1937.

Which showman, sometimes called 'the man who owned Broadway', has a statue in Duffy Square?

He shares the space with the TKTS booth, which has sold same-day discount theatre tickets there since June 1973.

The TKTS booth, rebuilt in 2008, is topped by red steps that are notable for being made of what?

It was the largest load-bearing glass structure in the world when it opened, with a wedge of bleacher-style stairs for sitting.

Times Square is the eastern terminus of which pioneering coast-to-coast road?

Chosen in 1913, the road ran 3,389 miles through 13 states to Lincoln Park in San Francisco.

Which German director drew inspiration for his 1927 film Metropolis after seeing Times Square in 1923?

Critics G. K. Chesterton and Thorstein Veblen were less impressed by the advertising.

Which 1920s Times Square chewing-gum sign, renting for $9,000 a month, was called the world's biggest?

Advertising spend in the square more than tripled over that decade.

Broadway's 'Great White Way' nickname arose because early electric signs used white lights. Why?

The Red Mill was the first show to install electric signs outside its theatre.

What did the New York Times' first New Year's Eve party at its tower in 1904 feature, before the ball drop?

The city banned launching them over the crowd, so Ochs wanted a bigger, safer spectacle for 1907.

The first Times Square ball, dropped on 31 December 1907, was lit by how many bulbs?

It weighed 700 pounds and was built by sign company Artkraft Strauss under Ukrainian metalworker Jacob Starr.

The ball drop was borrowed from a 'time ball' near Trinity Church on the tower of which company?

Time balls were dropped at set hours so ships and citizens could set their clocks.

The ball drop has been skipped only twice, in 1942 and 1943, for what reason?

Crowds instead observed a minute of silence at midnight, followed by chimes played from sound trucks.

Which manufacturer began supplying the crystal panels on the ball's outer surface in 2000?

By the mid-2020s the ball carried more than 5,000 circular panels inscribed with a yearly theme.

The sixth Times Square ball, introduced for 2008-09, was 12 feet across and weighed roughly how much?

It was an icosahedral geodesic sphere lit by over 32,000 LEDs; a 12.5-foot seventh ball debuted for 2025-26.

Which host fronted the top-rated Times Square New Year's Eve show until he died in 2012?

Ryan Seacrest took over New Year's Rockin' Eve after him; Guy Lombardo's CBS special was the earlier rival.

How much biodegradable confetti is dropped on the Times Square crowd at midnight each New Year?

The tradition dates from 1992; sanitation crews cleared over 50 tons of rubbish after the 2014 celebration.

One Times Square, the old Times Tower, is how many storeys tall?

It rises 363 feet; the newspaper only stayed until 1913 and sold the building in 1961.

The 'zipper' news ticker on One Times Square first lit up in November 1928 with a headline about what?

It used 14,800 bulbs driven by a chain conveyor of movable-type letter frames inside the building.

Which company bought the Times Tower in 1963 and stripped it to its steel frame, cladding it in marble?

The $10 million makeover came a year before the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission gained real power, to critic Ada Louise Huxtable's dismay.

Which financial firm, mocked for paying $27.5 million for One Times Square in 1995, made it a billboard frame?

The tower was too small to make sense as offices; the last office tenants left in 1996 and Jamestown has owned it since 1997.

Which pharmacy chain leased the entire One Times Square building in 2007 for $4 million a year?

Its flagship opened in 2008 and had closed by 2022 as a $500 million renovation added an observation deck.

Times Square's record two-million crowd on 15 August 1945 was celebrating what?

The zipper announced it with the headline 'OFFICIAL *** TRUMAN ANNOUNCES JAPANESE SURRENDER'.

Which magazine published Eisenstaedt's photo of a sailor kissing a woman in Times Square on V-J Day?

He shot it on a Leica IIIa; a 2012 book concluded the woman was dental hygienist Greta Zimmer Friedman, not a nurse.

Victor Jorgensen's rival Navy photo of the V-J Day kiss is free to use because it is what?

Made by a federal employee on duty, it cannot be copyrighted; his version pins the spot outside the Chemical Bank building.

A 1981 Rolling Stone article called 42nd Street in Times Square what?

By 1984 the whole area paid the city just $6 million in property taxes; The New York Times had called it the worst block in town as early as 1960.

Which 1969 film's portrait of Times Square as gritty and desperate came to symbolise the area's decline?

Taxi Driver in 1976 doubled down on the same seedy image.

Which corporation's restoration of the New Amsterdam Theatre kick-started the 1990s clean-up of 42nd Street?

As part of the deal, the city evicted pornographic theatres and brought in Madame Tussauds and AMC; critics called the result 'Disneyfied'.

Which musical was the first production at the reopened New Amsterdam Theatre in 1997?

It moved to the Minskoff in 2006 to make way for Mary Poppins; Aladdin has been there since 2014.

From 1913 to 1927 the New Amsterdam Theatre was home to which famous revue?

Producer Florenz Ziegfeld kept an office in the building and ran a second theatre on its roof.

Which German media giant's 1992 purchase of empty 1540 Broadway is credited with sparking Times Square's revival?

Morgan Stanley followed by buying 1585 Broadway in 1993 and 750 Seventh Avenue in 1994.

Under 1987 zoning rules, big new buildings in Times Square are required to include what?

The city wanted to make sure the area would never go dark at nightfall; developers also had to set aside space for entertainment uses.

Which mayor announced in 2009 that Broadway through Times Square would become pedestrian plazas?

The first seating was cheap multicoloured lawn chairs; the plazas were made permanent in 2010 and rebuilt in granite by Snøhetta.

The Naked Cowboy, a Times Square fixture since the late 1990s, performs in only boots, a hat and what?

Robert Burck of Cincinnati holds trademarks on the act and sued Mars in 2008 over a guitar-playing blue M&M dressed like him.

In 2010 the Naked Cowboy held a Times Square press conference to announce he was running for what?

He said he was neither a Democrat nor a Republican but 'an American'.

The failed car bombing of Times Square on 1 May 2010 was foiled after street vendors noticed what?

Faisal Shahzad, who trained with the Pakistani Taliban, was arrested two days later and sentenced to life.

Times Square–42nd Street opened in 1904 as one of how many original subway stations?

The complex is now the busiest in the system, handling about 65 million passengers in 2019.

Which train links Times Square directly to Grand Central?

Its platforms were part of the city's very first subway line, opened in 1904.

The curved seven-storey NASDAQ sign at 43rd Street wraps the corner of which tower?

The MarketSite studio sits at its base on 43rd Street; the Toshiba billboard hangs directly under the ball.

Which ABC morning show began broadcasting live from Times Square Studios in 1999?

The studios also hosted ESPN programming; Hershey's and M&M's stores face off across the street.

In which 2007 film does Will Smith hunt deer through a deserted Times Square?

Vanilla Sky used the same eerily empty trick; Godzilla, Deep Impact and Knowing preferred to destroy it.

Vanderbilt's American Horse Exchange on Times Square became which theatre in 1911?

The Olympia, built by cigar maker Oscar Hammerstein I, had been the square's first theatre.

Broadway theatre officially comprises how many professional houses of 500 or more seats?

Only a handful are actually on Broadway itself; most line the cross streets between 41st and 53rd.

Which cigar manufacturer and impresario built the Olympia, the first theatre on the square?

Before the theatres came, Longacre Square was nicknamed the Thieves Lair.

Which militia general who served under Washington owned the Times Square land around the Revolution?

John Jacob Astor later made a second fortune selling off the lots as the city spread uptown.

In which year did the tradition of dropping confetti on the midnight crowd begin?

The Times Square Business Improvement District started operations the same year.

Which news agency built 3 Times Square at Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street, opening in 2001?

Douglas Durst developed 4 Times Square across the way after buying the site in 1996.