September 8, 2006
Times Square
Times Square used to be called Longacre Square. When Alfred Ochs, publisher of the New York Times, decided to move his newspaper's headquarters to 42nd and Broadway, he pursuaded the Mayor to build a subway station at the spot and to name it Times Square. Thus went "Longacre" the way of "New Amsterdam," "Fulton Landing," and other now-obsolete New York names. One Times Square, the now empty former headquarters of the Times, was once, at 395 feet, the world's tallest building. It was constructed in 1905 and since the 1960s it has been entirely vacant, its owners having decided that renting out its facade to advertisers would be far more lucrative than letting its innards to businesses. The Budwiser billboard on One Times Square is barely visible in the upper right-hand of this photograph.
