Times Square was officially named Times Square in 1904 due to the presence of the New York Times newspaper’s office building there. Before becoming Times Square, it was known as Longacre Square and was the “carriage and harness district,” the site of William H. Vanderbilt’s American Horse Exchange where horses, horse buggies and milk were sold. (Vanderbilt would make his fortune in the shipping, steamboat, and railroad industry.) The term, “The Great White Way,” was coined by an advertising display designer, O.J. Gude, in 1901 and eccentric outdoor advertisements became a part of Broadway. From 1941 to 1966, a large billboard featured a man smoking a Camel cigarette and blowing smoke rings every four seconds. When I first visited the City in 1964, the gentleman had switched his brand of cigarettes to Winston’s (also a product of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company). In 1991, there was a 65-foot-high Coca-Cola display and at one time there was an advertisement with a steaming, big cup of Maxwell Coffee. The glittering neon Times Square signs of today are a far cry from the Times Square I first encountered in 1968. Times Square then had an abundance of pornographic video shows and cinemas and prostitutes and male hustlers worked the streets there. It was the steamy Times Square pictured in John Schlinger’s Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Martin Scorsese’s even more menacing Taxi Driver (1976). The seediness of Times Square became a famous symbol of New York City’s danger and corruption during the period from the 1960s until the 1990s.
On December 31, 1907, a New Year's ball dropped for the first time in Times Square and the event has remained a New Year's tradition ever since. It's a celebration that mostly attracts tourists. Real New Yorkers stay at home or have drinks out with friends. Over the last decade or more, Times Square has become a neighborhood with bright, colorful neon signs and advertisements. Here also news bulletins and a large Budweiser Beer, Panasonic and Yahoo ads greet you. In December 2007, Toshiba Corporation of Japan announced that it had signed a lease for a large 55 feet by 55 feet megasign here at One Times Square. The cost of such leases, as reported by the New York Times, ranges from $275,000 to $400,000 per month.
The bottom photo is of the former Paramount Film building at 44th Street and Broadway on a foggy evening.