Times Square was born in 1904, named after a newspaper, and became the brightest shop window in the world. In the 1970s, 42nd Street meant porn cinemas, prostitution and drugs; in the 1990s, the city, the state and companies like Disney transformed it completely. People still argue about what was gained and what was lost. Twelve stops between the tower that gave the square its name, the home of The New York Times for almost a century, the Ziegfeld Follies theater that Disney rescued, the block known as The Deuce, the bus terminal where predators waited for new arrivals, the working-class streets of Hell's Kitchen, the church where the Method was taught, the most famous nightclub on earth, the theater where the Beatles played, the songwriters' building, the alley of Broadway producers and the red staircase facing the screens. Approximate audio duration: 24 minutes.
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Times Square: cien años de espectáculo, decadencia y lavado de cara
Times Square nació en 1904 con el nombre de un diario y se volvió la vidriera más brillante del mundo. En los años setenta, la calle 42 era sinónimo de cines porno, prostitución y droga; en los noventa, la ciudad, el estado y empresas como Disney la transformaron por completo. Todavía hoy se discute qué se ganó y qué se perdió. Doce paradas entre la torre que bautizó la plaza, la casa del New York Times durante casi un siglo, el teatro de las Ziegfeld Follies que salvó Disney, la cuadra que llamaban The Deuce, la terminal de ómnibus donde esperaban los cazadores de recién llegados, las calles obreras de Hell's Kitchen, la iglesia donde se enseñó el Método, la discoteca más famosa del planeta, el teatro donde tocaron los Beatles, el edificio de los compositores, el callejón de los productores de Broadway y la escalinata roja frente a las pantallas. Duración aproximada de audio: 24 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~24 min of audio · 3.49 km on foot (~50 min walking) · about 1 h 15 min in total
You are standing where Broadway and Seventh Avenue cross in an X. Look south: that narrow building, covered in screens from top to bottom, is One Times Square. Behind the billboards there is a tower from 1904.
Until that year, this was called Longacre Square. It was a district of stables, blacksmiths and carriage makers, far from the city's elegant center. Nobody came here for a stroll.
Then Adolph Ochs, owner of The New York Times, decided to build his paper's new headquarters here. At the same time, a station of the city's first subway line was opening underneath. In April 1904, the square…
2
The Newspaper That Stayed Almost a Century
You are in front of 229 West 43rd Street. Look at that building of brick and pale stone, with mansard roofs on top. From 1913 to 2007, this was the home of The New York Times.
The tower on the square had become too small almost at once. The paper built a larger building here and kept extending it for decades, until it filled much of the block.
The paper was not only written here: it was printed here too. The presses were in the building, and at night trucks pulled out loaded with the morning editions. Printing only moved out of Manhattan in 1997.
Think of it this way: for most of the twenti…
3
Ziegfeld's Theater, Rescued by Disney
You are on the south side of 42nd Street, facing the New Amsterdam Theatre. Notice the stone facade, narrower than the rest of the building, and the marquee. Inside is one of the richest Art Nouveau interiors in New York.
It opened in 1903. It was one of the first great theaters on this street, just as 42nd was becoming the block with more playhouses than any other in the city.
Its golden age came with Florenz Ziegfeld. From 1913 to 1927, his Ziegfeld Follies played here: lavish revues with dozens of showgirls, enormous sets and stars like Fanny Brice and W. C. Fields. On the roof there was …
4
The Deuce: Manhattan's Most Notorious Block
You are on the north side of 42nd Street, facing the New Victory Theater. Look at the double staircase leading up to the entrance. It is the oldest working theater on this block.
Oscar Hammerstein built it in 1900; he was the grandfather of the lyricist of The Sound of Music. For a few years it was run by the producer David Belasco. It was a prestigious house on Broadway's most glittering block.
With the Great Depression, 42nd Street changed its audience. Many theaters switched to burlesque and then to cheap cinemas running films from morning until the small hours. In the 1930s, this very th…
5
The Terminal of New Arrivals
You are at the corner of Eighth Avenue and 42nd Street. On the west side stretches the Port Authority Bus Terminal, a gray bulk covering several blocks. On the east side, the glass tower screened with pale rods is the current headquarters of The New York Times.
The terminal opened in December 1950. Before that, dozens of long-distance bus companies had their stops scattered around Midtown, and the buses clogged the streets. The idea was to gather them all in one building, with ramps leading straight to the Lincoln Tunnel.
Today it is one of the busiest bus terminals in the world. Every day, …
6
The Church Where the Method Was Taught
You are on West 44th Street, between Ninth and Tenth Avenues. Look for number 432: a small brick church from the mid-nineteenth century, with no neon signs. It is the home of the Actors Studio.
The Actors Studio was founded in 1947. It was created by director Elia Kazan, producer Cheryl Crawford and director Robert Lewis, as a workshop where professional actors could keep training away from the pressure of opening nights.
From 1951 it was led by Lee Strasberg, until his death in 1982. Under him the studio became associated with what Americans called the Method: an approach to acting built on…
7
Hell's Kitchen, the Devil's Own Neighborhood
You are on Ninth Avenue, around 47th Street. Look around you: five- and six-story brick buildings, fire escapes on the facades and restaurants from every country on the ground floor. This is Hell's Kitchen.
The neighborhood stretches west of Eighth Avenue, roughly between 34th and 59th Streets. In the nineteenth century it was settled mostly by Irish immigrants, who worked on the Hudson River docks, on the railroads and in the area's slaughterhouses.
Nobody knows for sure where the name comes from. There are several legends, and none is proven. What is certain is that for a long time it mean…
8
Studio 54, the Party on the Other Side
You are in front of 254 West 54th Street. Look at the marquee: it says Studio 54. Today it is a Broadway theater, but the name still carries the most famous nightclub of the twentieth century.
The building opened in 1927 as an opera house. Later the CBS network used it for years as a radio and television studio. That is where the word Studio comes from.
In April 1977, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager turned it into a nightclub. At the door, a crowd waited behind a velvet rope, and Rubell himself picked who got in. Inside were Andy Warhol, Liza Minnelli, Bianca Jagger and the designer Halston.
…
9
The Theater Where the Beatles Played
You are on Broadway, between 53rd and 54th Streets. Look at the vertical sign that reads Ed Sullivan. Behind that brick facade is the most famous television studio in the United States.
It opened in 1927 as Hammerstein's Theatre. Arthur Hammerstein built it in memory of his father, the same Oscar Hammerstein who built the 42nd Street theater you saw earlier.
In the mid-1930s CBS took it over, first for radio and then for television. Ed Sullivan's variety program was broadcast from here, a Sunday-night show that ran for more than twenty years. In 1967 the theater was given his name.
On Febru…
10
The Building of Songs
You are at the corner of Broadway and 49th Street. Look at the eleven-story building with the gilded Art Deco entrance: it is the Brill Building, at 1619 Broadway. Notice the bust above the door.
It was completed in 1931, in the depths of the Depression. It takes its name from the Brill brothers, clothing merchants who owned the site. Unable to rent it to conventional businesses, they offered space to music publishers.
It was a good idea. Over the following decades the building filled with small offices, each with a piano, where composers, lyricists and publishers turned out songs almost on …
11
Shubert Alley, the Heart of Broadway
You are in Shubert Alley, the pedestrian passage linking 44th and 45th Streets. Look at the walls covered with musical posters. On one side are the Shubert Theatre and the Booth Theatre, both from 1913.
The alley is private and was born with those theaters. It is named after the Shubert brothers, who came to control a large share of Broadway's houses. Their organization is still one of the district's biggest theater owners.
For decades, actors gathered here hoping to bump into a producer or hear about an audition. At the Shubert Theatre, A Chorus Line, a musical about dancers looking for wor…
12
The Red Steps and the Big Question
You are in Duffy Square, the northern tip of Times Square. Climb a few of the red steps and look south: screens on every facade and, at the far end, the tower where this walk began.
The bronze statue is of Father Francis Duffy, chaplain of New York's 69th Regiment in the First World War and later a parish priest in this area. Under the staircase is the TKTS booth, which since 1973 has sold discounted same-day tickets. It was born in the middle of a crisis, to fill empty seats.
The cleanup of Times Square was not a single act. In 1992 local businesses created an improvement district that paid…
How long does the "Times Square: A Century of Spectacle, Decay and Makeover" audio tour take?
It has about 24 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 3.49 km walking route (~50 min on foot). Plan roughly 1 h 15 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "The Tower That Named the Square" (coordinates 40.7568, -73.9861). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open New York and pick "Times Square: A Century of Spectacle, Decay and Makeover". No account required to start.
