# Happy 100th Birthday, Times Square! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 8, 2004, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-100th-birthday-times-square/238973 "2004-04-08T15:38:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-100th-birthday-times-square/238973/1 "2004-04-08T15:38:19Z")
From today’s _Times_: “Times Square Is the Name of City’s New Centre.” These nine words appeared on Page 2 of _The New York Times_ on April 9, 1904, the morning after Mayor George B. McClellan signed the resolution changing the name of Long Acre Square. Beneath the headline was a map with “Times Square” in large letters and the new landmarks of what had been a horse-and-buggy neighborhood—Long Acre Square had been named after London’s carriage district. One new landmark was _The Times_’s not-yet-completed headquarters, a Gothic fortress that was being built between Broadway and Seventh Avenue and 42nd and 43rd Streets. An advertisement for the building on April 10 boasted that it would “probably be the tallest skeleton structure in New York, measuring 430 feet in all.” Sadly, [this](http://lileks.com/NYC/timessquare/0.html) is what the Times Building used to look like; and [this](http://lileks.com/NYC/timessquare/23.html) is how it’s looked since the mid-1960s. ---
**Author:** ![OxyMoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9a140/32.png) [@OxyMoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OxyMoron)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-100th-birthday-times-square/238973/2 "2004-04-08T16:06:08Z")
What I wanna know - what was the relationship between the Times and August Belmont? He built the subway line that runs beneath the Times Building, and was one of the promoters of the name change. The new name is literally engraved in stone (well, engraved _with_ stone - mosaic tiles) in the subway station, and the reasons he allgedly wanted the change sound pretty lame. From today’s Times article (quoting a Times article from 1904): > [@](#): > > “The choice of this name grew naturally out of the necessity of having a distinctive title for the subway station in the basement of The Times Building at the corner of Forty-second Street and Broadway,” The Times explained. “To have called the station ‘Forty-second Street’ would have been a source of endless confusion, since the Grand Central Station of the subway is also on Forty-second Street. The name ‘Broadway Station’ would have been open to the same objection, since there are many other subway stations on Broadway. The name Times Station naturally suggested itself, since the subway passes through the first underground story of The Times Building.”… As he also noted, New York had named a square for a newspaper before - Herald Square. Also, he wrote, “The old name of Long Acre Square meant nothing, signified nothing.” Long Acre square meant nothing? And so Times Square was just so much more recognizable? Puh-leeze. I’m betting that Belmont, who had fingers in _many_ pies, was a silent investor in the Times - or felt he owed them a favor in exchange for some combination of support for the (municipally subsidized) subway, and the ability to run a major station through their basement. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-100th-birthday-times-square/238973/3 "2004-04-08T16:12:13Z")
The _Times_’ competitors were none too crazy about this, by the way. I’ve dug through a lot of clippings in my research for various projects, and the _Herald, Journal, News_, etc., were still referring to the area as “Long Acre Square” well into the 1920s! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-100th-birthday-times-square/238973/4 "2004-04-08T18:08:08Z")
> [@](#): > > The Times’ competitors were none too crazy about this, by the way. I’ve dug through a lot of clippings in my research for various projects, and the Herald, Journal, News, etc., were still referring to the area as “Long Acre Square” well into the 1920s! So couldn’t the Times have retaliated by calling Herald Square by some other name? ---
**Author:** ![acrossthesea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@acrossthesea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/acrossthesea)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-100th-birthday-times-square/238973/5 "2004-04-08T20:15:11Z")
I miss times square! I seriously wish I could have been around to see it back then. First because I love everything about the late 19th-early 20th century, and also because Times Square nowadays makes me think of a frightening glimpse of hell as designed by someone who spent too long in Las Vegas. I think it was when they put that big ovally building with commercials and stock quotes going in garish neon turquoise on the building itself…the entire building is a tv screen with windows in it…that they went overboard. Or maybe long before. I remember a billboard, or store, sign, or something that displayed the words “Too Much is Not Enough” and to me that was a slogan for all of times square. I’ve never been to see the ball drop on new years but to me every night over there is a little TOO sparkly, glowing, or something. The animated neon subway and police station signs say a lot. I haven’t been there in 2 years but hopefully will get to go back this summer! ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-100th-birthday-times-square/238973/6 "2004-04-08T20:42:13Z")
> [@acrossthesea](#): > > I haven’t been there in 2 years but hopefully will get to go back this summer! Shall I tell all the gang at 42nd Street that you will soon be there? You won’t recognize the place, though not all the changes are bad. I actually like the new skyscraper on the corner of 8th and 42nd, and they _did_ renovate the old Victory, New Amsterdam and Eltinge theaters. On the other hand, so much was demolished: the Cadillac Building, the old side-street hotels, the Hubert’s Flea Circus Bldg. . . .