Room 05 of 111 · TIMES SQUARE · 1904

Electric crossroads

A canyon of lit billboards showing nothing but New Yorkers, the red steps and the ball at the end.

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Electric crossroads

Times Square, the history

The crossroads at Broadway and Seventh Avenue was called Longacre Square until 1904, when The New York Times moved into its tower there and the city renamed it. The first New Year's Eve ball dropped from that tower on December 31, 1907. The red glass steps above the TKTS booth opened in 2008.

Source · Times Square Alliance ↗

What the room is built from

Stacked wraparound screens, the red TKTS staircase, One Times Square with its mast and ball. Mood: midnight. Everything is procedural geometry with painted surfaces; nothing is a scan or a photograph. The room is an interpretation, and it hangs the New Yorkers the census recorded at this place first.

Read more

LIGHTS OUT4 MIN
The Blackout of July 13, 1977
What happened when New York lost power on July 13, 1977, the looting and fires that followed, and how the 1965 and 2003 blackouts differed.
MIDNIGHT4 MIN
Times Square and the Ball Drop
Longacre Square, the New York Times tower of 1904, the first ball on December 31, 1907, the decline, and the remake of the 1990s.
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