One Times Square

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2010)

One Times Square
One Times Square as seen in 2007
General information
Location	1 Times Square, New York City
Coordinates	40°45′23″N 73°59′11″W / 40.756421°N 73.9864883°W / 40.756421; -73.9864883Coordinates: 40°45′23″N 73°59′11″W / 40.756421°N 73.9864883°W / 40.756421; -73.9864883
Completed	1904
Height
Roof	395 ft (120 m)
Technical details
Floor count	25
Design and construction
Architect	Cyrus L.W. Eidlitz, James C. Mackenzie, Jr.
Developer	The New York Times

The Toshiba screens on One Times Square announcing the arrival of the new year 2012. Prior to that, they showed a sixty second countdown to coincide with the ball drop.

An up close image of the East face of One Times Square.

One Times Square (also known as 1475 Broadway, New York Times Building and New York Times Tower) is a 25 story, 395 foot (110.6 m)^[1] high skyscraper at 42nd Street and Broadway.

The second tallest building in Manhattan when it opened, it was originally constructed to serve as the headquarters of the local newspaper, The New York Times. While the Times no longer operates from the building, One Times Square remains a major focal point of Times Square, with

History

One Times Square was originally completed in 1904 to serve as the new headquarters of The New York Times (which led to its owner Adolph Ochs successfully persuading the city to name the area Times Square). However, less than ten years after it moved to One Times Square, the Times moved its corporate headquarters to The New York Times Building on 229 West 43rd Street, in 1913. The Times retained a classified advertising branch office in the building until it sold the Times Tower in 1961. The Times is now headquartered in the New York Times Building on nearby Eighth Avenue.

To help advertise the new headquarters, the Times held a New Year's Eve event on December 31, 1903, welcoming the year of 1904 with a fireworks display set off from its roof at midnight. The event was a success, attracting 200,000 spectators, and was continued annually until 1907. For 1908, the display was replaced with what New York Times owner Adolph Ochs believed would be a more spectacular event — the lowering of a lit ball down the building's flagpole at midnight, influenced by the practice of lowering a time ball to mark a certain hour of the day. Even after the New York Times left the building, the "ball drop" is still held at the building to this day, attracting nearly a million spectators yearly, and celebrating its centennial in 2008.^[2]

One Times Square in 2005.

In 1928, the famous electric news ticker display near the base of the building was first used to announce the results of the US presidential election of 1928. Spanning the base of the entire building, the sign was originally made of 14,800 lamps. The ticker was dark^[vague] between 1975 and 1980, when Newsday sponsored the revival of the display. The ticker is now sponsored by Dow Jones, the parent of The Wall Street Journal.

During World War II in the early 1940s, the ball lowering was stopped for two years due to wartime blackouts and energy conservation. A celebration was still held, but the crowds observed a minute of silence for the wartime efforts.

From building to billboard

The Times sold the building to Douglas Leigh in 1961. Leigh then sold the building to Allied Chemical in 1963. Allied Chemical greatly modified the building's facade, replacing intricate granite and terracotta elements with marble facing and simple concrete paneling. This refurbishment made a majority of the building's exterior a sheer wall, with the exception of floor-to-ceiling windows on the 16th floor. The 16th floor was a restaurant space for some time, allowing diners to eat their meals in Art Deco elegance at eye level with the glittering towers all around the square. However, the restaurant space has been closed since the 1980s.

The "Jumbotron" and news ticker on the north face of One Times Square, simulcasting MSNBC's coverage of Michael Jackson's child molestation trial

Because of the extensive cost of renovating the building with central air conditioning, the building currently has no tenants above the retail floors and is only used to hold dozens of colorful advertisements. Additionally, the operators of One Times Square have noted that the building generates more revenue as a collection of advertisements than it would full of tenants. In 2000, it was reported that the building's 26 signs bring in monthly rent checks ranging from $100,000 to $250,000.^[3]

In recent times the building has been vacant except for occasional tenants in the retail space. In the late 1990s, a Warner Bros. retail store filled the first three floors, but most of the building remained vacant. For three weeks in March 2006, the first three floors were occupied by a "JC Penney Experience" store. The building's first three floors currently house a flagship Walgreens pharmacy, which opened in November 2008,^[4] On opening day, Walgreens launched the largest LED sign in Times Square. Walgreens' 17,000-square-foot (1,600 m²) sign with over 12 million LEDs dwarfs the previous largest LED sign in Times Square, the NASDAQ sign on Broadway. The Walgreens sign, designed by Gilmore Group and built by D3 LED, runs diagonally up both sides of the building and loops around the front, and weighs 250,000 pounds.^[5]

In 1990, Sony installed the first Jumbotron on the exterior of the building. Among its common uses was a direct feed from the Late Show with David Letterman which could be switched on by the show's producers. When Sony's lease ended on June 1, 1996, they turned off the Jumbotron and it was later replaced.^[6] In late 2006, the iconic NBC Peacock that hung above the Panasonic Jumbotron was replaced with the logo of News Corp., the parent company of Fox. Weeks later, the Budweiser billboard that hangs above the JumboTron was expanded into a complete LED High definition screen, and the Cup Noodles ad that had hung above the former Peacock logo and Budweiser ads was taken down and replaced by a new Chevrolet billboard that features a clock. The Chevy ad was replaced early December 2009 with an ad for Kia and that ad was replaced with one for Dunkin' Donuts the year after.^[7]

In December 2007, Toshiba took over sponsorship of the topmost screen of One Times Square from Discover Card in a 10-year lease.^[8] Throughout 2008, changes were made to the upper portion of One Times Square; including the installation of a new Toshiba high definition LED display branded as ToshibaVision, and the roof of the building was redesigned to accommodate an enlarged flagpole for the new New Year's Eve Ball, which was doubled in size and is now displayed year-round at a new height of 485 ft (148 m)..^[9] In 2010, a new Sony Jumbotron, a Daktronics DVX Outdoor Display, took the place of the Panasonic, and continues to be sponsored by News Corp.

The digital signs on the building are considered to be the most valuable in the world. They can often be rented by the day or by the hour for product launches or other special events. The rental rates can be as high as $10,000 per hour.

References

External links

• History of One Times Square
• in-Arch.net: The Times Tower
• Pictured history of One Times Square