What comes to mind when you think of the Times Square? Huge glaring billboards, flickering lights, crowded streets, people dressed as Disney characters, tourists posing with their cameras! The Times Square in New York is all of this and so much more.
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The Times Square of New York is an intersection between Seventh Avenue and Broadway, stretching from the 42nd to the 47th street. Though called as a square, the Times Square is not exactly a square, it is more a triangular stretch.
'Times Square' isn’t the original name of the intersection. Till the year 1904 it was known as 'Longacre Square', named after Long Acre area in London.
It was only after the New York Times moved its headquarters to the Times Tower on the 42nd street in 1904, that the place was then recognized as the Times Square.
According to a travel survey, The Times Square in New York is one of the most photographed and Instagrammed tourist spot in the world.
The Times Square has had many nicknames over the years like ‘The Centre of the Universe’, ‘The Crossroads of the World’, ‘The Heart of the World’, and 'The Great White Way’.
The Times Square hosts one of the biggest New Year’s Eve Party in the world. Nearly a million people gather in the square on New Year’s Eve to watch the Times Square Ball drop, famously known as the ‘Dropping of the Ball’.
The Times Square New Year's Eve ball drop is broadcasted by many U.S television networks and watched by millions of people. Dick Clark began hosting the half-hour special called Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve in 1972.
The billboards and the lights are so bright in the Times Square that it is actually possible to see it from outer space.
No wonder they call it ‘The Land of Eternal Sunshine’!
An average of 330,000 people pass through the Times Square daily and it is visited by nearly 40 million people every year.
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Given its charm and popularity, there’s no surprise that the Times Square has been featured in numerous movies and television shows.
Most well-known among them being Vanilla Sky, Spider Man series, Captain America, Gossip Girl, Michael Clayton, Enchanted, I Am Legend, Letters to Juliet and many more.
There is an iconic photograph known as ‘V-J Day in Times Square’ or ‘The Kiss’. The photo features a U.S navy sailor spontaneously kissing a nurse as a sign of celebration that the war had finally come to an end. The photo was taken in the middle of the Times Square on August 14, 1945.