42 Fun Facts About Times Square

Times Square lies in which part of Manhattan?

Midtown: the square takes its name from The New York Times, whose new tower there opened in 1904.

What was Times Square called before 1904, after a London carriage-trade street?

Longacre: like London's Long Acre, the neighbourhood was known for the carriage trade, and carriage makers clustered there.

Which publisher moved The New York Times into the new tower that gave Times Square its name?

Adolph S. Ochs: yet the paper outgrew its famous tower within a decade and moved to bigger offices a block away in 1913.

Which nickname has Times Square long been known by?

The Crossroads of the World: almost from the start, the square was also where New Yorkers gathered to see in each new year.

Together with Duffy Square, Times Square is usually likened to which shape?

A bowtie: Broadway slants across Seventh Avenue, leaving two triangles that meet at 45th Street, the northern one being Duffy Square.

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

An army chaplain: after serving with New York's 'Fighting 69th', Duffy became pastor of a nearby church, which his statue still faces.

Which Broadway showman, played on film by James Cagney, has a statue in Duffy Square?

George M. Cohan: he wrote 'Over There' when America entered World War I, and Congress later honoured him with a medal for it.

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

Load-bearing glass: the booth's new look grew out of a worldwide design competition won by two Australian architects.

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

The Lincoln Highway, which ran to Lincoln Park in San Francisco, was dreamed up by Carl Fisher, the entrepreneur behind the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Which cigarette brand's famous Times Square billboard showed a man blowing smoke rings?

Camel: the 'smoke' was really steam, puffed out in rings to look like cigarette smoke.

Which nickname is given to Broadway's theatre district?

The Great White Way: the name came from the brilliant electric lights of the district's signs and marquees.

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

Fireworks: but hot ash raining on the crowds worried city officials, fireworks were banned, and from 1907 the Times dropped a ball instead.

What was the first Times Square ball, dropped in 1907, made of?

Iron and wood: to promote that first drop, waiters at nearby hotels and restaurants wore light-up top hats spelling out '1908'.

The Times Square ball drop was modelled on a 'time ball' atop the building of which company?

Western Union: time balls let ship captains check their chronometers, and most were later dismantled.

Why was the Times Square ball drop called off two years in a row?

Wartime blackouts: the crowd instead marked midnight with a moment of silence, followed by chimes from sound trucks.

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

Waterford: its 'Hope for Healing' panels for the 2001-02 celebration were engraved to honour the victims of the September 11 attacks.

What shape was the 12-foot Times Square ball introduced for 2008-09?

A geodesic sphere: back in the 1980s an earlier ball had been dressed up as a giant apple for the I Love New York campaign.

Which host fronted ABC's New Year's Eve countdown from Times Square until his death in 2012?

Dick Clark: a stroke in late 2004 kept him off that year's show, but he came back on air for the next one.

What can visitors write on pieces of the confetti dropped over Times Square at midnight on New Year's Eve?

Wishes: people write them at a Wishing Wall set up in the square or send them online, and the pieces are mixed into the midnight confetti.

What nickname did the old Times Tower's moving news sign get?

The zipper: the Times switched it on in 1928, years after the paper had moved its newsroom out of the tower.

Frank Sinatra's 1944 shows at which Times Square theatre set off the Columbus Day riot?

The Paramount: tens of thousands of bobby-soxer fans who could not get in swarmed Times Square outside.

Which company gave its name to the old Times Tower after buying it in the early 1960s?

Allied Chemical: it had the tower stripped of its original facade and covered in panels of marble.

Which toy retailer's Times Square flagship store featured a 60-foot indoor Ferris wheel?

Toys R Us: the store closed in December 2015, when the chain chose not to renew its lease so as to save on rent.

An enormous crowd packed Times Square in August 1945 to celebrate what?

Victory over Japan: the Times Tower's moving news sign flashed that President Truman had announced Japan's 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?

Victor Jorgensen shot the kiss as a Navy photojournalist on duty, so as a US government work his image is in the public domain; it ran in The New York Times the next day.

Which 1969 film showed the seedy side of Times Square?

Midnight Cowboy was first released with an X rating, which was later changed to R.

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

Disney's mid-1990s restoration of the New Amsterdam Theatre anchored the 42nd Street redevelopment; the city evicted pornographic theatres and brought in Madame Tussauds and AMC, and critics called the result 'Disneyfied'.

Which musical opened at the restored New Amsterdam Theatre in November 1997?

The Lion King opened at the New Amsterdam on 13 November 1997 and moved to the Minskoff Theatre in 2006 to make way for Mary Poppins; Aladdin opened in the house in 2014.

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

The Ziegfeld Follies: the first edition, in 1907, proved so popular that Ziegfeld staged a new one almost every year.

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

Michael Bloomberg: the trial stuck, the plazas became permanent in 2010, and Snøhetta rebuilt them with granite pavers and benches.

What did street vendors notice before the failed May 2010 Times Square car bombing?

Smoke coming from a parked SUV: a T-shirt vendor alerted a mounted police officer, and police began clearing the square.

The Times Square subway station opened in 1904 on which company's first line?

The IRT: the city took over the private company's lines in 1940, bringing them under city ownership.

Which Andrew Lloyd Webber musical ran from 1982 to 2000 in the Broadway theatre built from an old horse exchange?

Cats: the auditorium was gutted to build the show's junkyard set, and Mamma Mia! moved in after it closed.

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

4 Times Square: its developer, the Durst family firm, had fought the Times Square redevelopment for 15 years before building there.

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

Good Morning America: its street-side studio was ABC's answer to the one NBC had built for its ratings leader, Today.

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

I Am Legend: Richard Matheson's novel was set in Los Angeles, but the film moved the story to New York.

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

The Winter Garden: by 1911 cars had replaced the horse trade, so the Shuberts leased the exchange and turned it into a theatre.

What name is given to professional theatres smaller than Broadway houses?

Off-Broadway: the label is about a theatre's size rather than its location, so some Off-Broadway houses sit inside the theatre district.

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

Oscar Hammerstein I: the costly Olympia soon ruined him, and by 1898 he had lost it to his debts.

Which hotel opened in 1985 on the site of the demolished Helen Hayes and Morosco theatres?

The New York Marriott Marquis, designed by John Portman around a soaring atrium, opened in 1985 on Broadway between 45th and 46th Streets after the Helen Hayes, Morosco and Bijou theatres were razed in 1982.

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

Reuters: the tower replaced the old Rialto theatre, and its design was meant partly as a homage to it.