One Times Square

One Times Square is at the southern end of Times Square in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York, U.S. It takes up the city block bounded by Seventh Avenue to the west, 42nd Street to the south, Broadway to the east, and 43rd Street to the north. The land lot is trapezoidal and covers . The shape of the site arises from Broadway's diagonal alignment relative to the Manhattan street grid. The building's address was originally 1475 Broadway, but it was changed to 1 Times Square in 1966. Nearby buildings include 1501 Broadway to the north, 1500 Broadway to the northeast, 4 Times Square to the east, The Knickerbocker Hotel to the southeast, the Times Square Tower to the south, 5 Times Square to the southwest, and 3 Times Square to the west. Prior to the construction of what is now One Times Square, the northern end of the site had been part of the estate of Amos R. Eno, which had sold the site in 1901 to the Subway Realty Company. The southern end contained the Pabst Hotel, which had been built on land leased from Charles Thorley. The southeast corner of the building originally contained a plaque containing Thorley's name, as he had required that his name be placed on any building that was constructed on the site. The New York Times Company bought the site in 1927, four years after Thorley died, but the plaques remained until 1963. ==History==

Times ownership Newspaper publisher Adolph Ochs purchased The New York Times in 1896. The paper was then headquartered at 41 Park Row in Lower Manhattan, within the city's Newspaper Row. The Times expanded greatly under Ochs's leadership, prompting him to acquire land for a new headquarters in Longacre Square. In August 1902, Ochs purchased the former Eno ground from the Subway Realty Company and obtained a long-term lease from Charles Thorley on the ground under the Pabst Hotel. At the time, the first line of the New York City Subway was being constructed through the site, spurring commercial growth in the surrounding neighborhood. In deciding to relocate to Longacre Square, the Times cited the fact that the New York City Subway's Times Square station would be directly adjacent to the new building, thus allowing the paper to expand its circulation. Headquarters In mid-1902, the Times hired architect Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz to draw up plans for its skyscraper headquarters at Longacre Square. Site clearing began in December 1902 and was completed within two months. Afterward, workers began constructing the building's concrete, brickwork, and ironwork in mid-1903. Ochs's 11-year-old daughter Iphigene Bertha Ochs laid the building's cornerstone on January 18, 1904, after the steel frame had been completed. Ochs successfully persuaded the New York City Board of Aldermen to rename the surrounding area after the newspaper, and Longacre Square was renamed Times Square in April 1904. Workers were installing interior finishes by the next month. According to the Times, the building's completion was delayed by 299 days due to various strikes during the project, as well as inclement weather. Prior to the building's completion, in November 1904, the Times used searchlights on the facade to display the results of the 1904 United States presidential election. The Times indicated which candidate won by flashing searchlights on different sides of the building. The New York Times officially moved into the building on January 1, 1905. To help promote the new headquarters, the Times held a New Year's Eve event on December 31, 1904, welcoming the year 1905 with a fireworks display set off from the roof of the building at midnight. The event was a success, attracting 200,000 spectators, and was repeated annually through 1907. The same year, the paper started operating a stereopticon machine on the north side of the building, displaying news bulletins. In addition, the Times experimented with transmitting music and telephone messages to the top of its tower in 1907. In 1908, Ochs replaced the fireworks display with the lowering of a lit ball down the building's flagpole at midnight, patterned off the use of time balls to indicate a certain time of day. The "ball drop" was directly inspired by a time ball atop the Western Union Telegraph Building in lower Manhattan. By then, Times Square had become a popular venue for New Year's celebrations. The ball drop is still held atop One Times Square, attracting an average of one million spectators yearly. The Times Tower was also used for telegraph experiments, and its searchlights continued to display election results, including those for the 1908 United States presidential election. The building's roof attracted visitors such as French author Pierre Loti, who called the Times Tower "one of the boldest" of New York City's skyscrapers, and Jamalul Kiram II, the Sultan of Sulu. Times relocation and office use There was so little space on the Times Tower site that its mechanical basements had to descend as much as . By the early 1910s, the Times Square area had become densely developed with restaurants, theaters, hotels, and office buildings. Despite the dearth of space, a Times booklet said: "It did not occur to anyone to suggest that the [Times] should desert Times Square." On February 2, 1913, eight years after it moved to One Times Square, the Times moved its corporate headquarters to 229 West 43rd Street, Most of the Times operations quickly moved to the annex, except for the publishing and subscription divisions. The building continued to be popularly known as the Times Tower for half a century. The original Times Square Ball above the Times Tower was replaced following the 1919–1920 New Year's celebrations. An electromechanical Motograph News Bulletin news ticker, colloquially known as the "zipper", started operating near the base of the building on November 6, 1928, after eight weeks of installation. The zipper originally consisted of 14,800 light bulbs, with the display controlled by a chain conveyor system inside the building; individual letter elements (a form of movable type) were loaded into frames to spell out news headlines. As the frames moved along the conveyor, the letters themselves triggered electrical contacts which lit the external bulbs (the zipper was later upgraded to use modern LED technology). The first headline displayed on the zipper announced Herbert Hoover's victory in that day's presidential election. The tower's lights were darkened for the same reason. Consequently, the 1942 New York state election was the first since 1904 for which the tower's lights did not broadcast any election results. The Times reactivated the building's zipper in October 1943, but, less than two weeks later, the sign was again deactivated to reduce electricity usage. The sign operated intermittently until the end of World War II, when it again ran continuously. Ahead of the 1952 United States presidential election, the Times temporarily installed a electronic sign on the 4th through 11th stories of the northern facade, displaying each candidate's electoral vote count. The sign was reinstalled on the Times Tower during the 1956 United States presidential election. The tower's ball was also replaced after the 1954–1955 celebrations. Leigh and Allied Chemical ownership The Times sold the building to advertising executive and sign designer Douglas Leigh in 1961. According to The Wall Street Journal, Leigh had attempted to purchase the Times Tower for 25 years before he succeeded. At the time, there were 110 tenants in the building; the Times only operated the zipper as well as a classified advertising office at ground level. Leigh had planned to construct an exhibition hall within the building. investigators later determined that the fire had been caused by "careless smoking". The building's zipper was deactivated in December 1962 due to the 1962–1963 New York City newspaper strike, and it did not operate for more than two years. Leigh sold the building in April 1963 to Allied Chemical, which planned to renovate the building and use it as a sales headquarters and showroom. The first three stories would be re-clad in glass and serve as a showroom for nylon products, and the interior would be completely overhauled. Benjamin Bailyn of architectural firm Smith Haines Lundberg Waehler designed the renovation. Due to recent changes to New York City zoning laws, it was more economically efficient to renovate the Times Tower than to demolish it, as a new building on the site could not be as tall. Work began in October 1963, and the Times Tower's original cornerstone was unsealed in a ceremony in March 1964. Allied Chemical stripped the building to its steel frame, replacing the intricate granite and terracotta facade with marble panels as part of a $10 million renovation. The first panel of the new facade crashed to the ground while it was being installed in August 1964. The modifications occurred one year before the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission gained the power to protect buildings as official landmarks, leading architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable to express opposition to the renovation. Huxtable praised the building as "radical and conservative at the same time", saying that it was full of "vintage structural details". Allied Chemical turned on four electric signs atop the tower in July 1965. The Times Tower was officially rededicated that December as the Allied Chemical Tower. Shortly after the renovation was completed, Allied Chemical's nylon division had outgrown the space, and the building's elevator service was also reportedly unreliable. The Stouffer Foods Corporation also agreed to operate an English-themed restaurant on the 15th and 16th floors. The restaurant, known as Act I, opened in 1966. The United States Postal Service officially changed the building's address from 1475 Broadway to 1 Times Square in September 1966. Allied Chemical announced in late 1972 that it had placed 1 Times Square for sale. By that time, the company no longer needed the surplus space in its namesake tower. Allied Chemical had relocated other workers to Morris Township, New Jersey, during early 1972, and it planned to move its nylon division into smaller space at the nearby 1411 Broadway. It is unknown whether anyone submitted a bid to purchase the building, but Allied Chemical ultimately failed to sell it. Parker then renamed the building Expo America. He planned to convert 17 of the building's stories into an exhibition hall while also continuing to operate the Act I restaurant. According to Parker, it cost him $100,000 a year to operate the zipper. Parker exercised his option to buy the building in 1975 Under Parker's plan, four stories would be added to the tower, and the facade would be replaced with panels of one-way glass. Parker also planned to host a competition to select a new name for the building. Spectacolor Inc. installed a new zipper on the building's facade later that year. The zipper only operated for a short time before being deactivated entirely in 1977. Times Square redevelopment Early plans The City at 42nd Street Inc. proposed demolishing One Times Square in 1979 as part of a plan to redevelop a section of West 42nd Street near Times Square. Parker, who had not been consulted about the proposal, expressed his opposition by calling it "obscene". Another plan for the site, announced in 1981, called for renovating One Times Square into a "potential civic sculpture" with a brightly lit facade. In a plan presented to the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) in June 1981, architectural firm Cooper Eckstut proposed doubling the height of One Times Square's northern section. Parker had sold the building to the Swiss investment group Kemekod in February 1981. Kemekod sold the tower to TSNY Realty Corporation, an investment group led by Lawrence I. Linksman, in 1982 for $12 million. Linksman promised further renovations to the building, including the possibility of using its north face for signage displays. Park Tower Realty, which had been designated as the developer of these towers, offered to buy the building in November 1983. Park Tower planned to demolish the building and transfer the Times Square Ball to the tallest of the four new buildings. A month afterward, TSNY sued Park Tower to prevent the demolition. Allan J. Riley acquired the building in 1984 for $16.5 million, at which point the building was almost fully leased. Also in 1984, the Municipal Art Society held an architectural design competition for the site, attracting over 1,380 entrants from 15 nations. That December, the building's owner objected to the ESDC's plans to condemn the site. The city and state governments of New York created a six-member committee in 1985 to discuss the future of One Times Square. Israel and Calmenson ownership Steven M. Israel and Gary Calmenson paid $18.1 million for the building in December 1985 and leased the building's ticker to local newspaper Newsday the next month. The ticker displayed headlines, advertising, and weather from 6 a.m. to midnight each day. By then, Park Tower had begun promoting a plan to replace One Times Square with a seven-story building containing an "open staircase running up its middle and a waterfall running over rough stones at its base". City and state officials debated whether to acquire One Times Square through condemnation for several years, but they canceled these plans in 1988 after failing to reach an agreement. By 1988, Israel had renovated the first two stories for $1 million. In addition, he converted the 11th floor into an amenity area for the building's tenants; the space contained production rooms, a reception area, and a screening room. At the time, the building was known as One Times Square Plaza. The building's owners negotiated to lease additional advertising space on the building to Newsday, but the deal was canceled. Sony agreed to start operating a Jumbotron on the exterior of the tower in 1990; the Jumbotron was upgraded in March 1994. BAII moved to foreclose on the property in 1991, prompting Israel and Calmenson to file for bankruptcy protection in March 1992. Israel wanted to avoid a foreclosure, as he would be liable for $2 million in taxes if the building were foreclosed upon. Rebecca Rawson was named as the receiver for the bankrupt property. using the zipper for news, announcements, and advertisements of its own products. Lehman Brothers ownership Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP) bought the building at a foreclosure auction in January 1995 for $25.2 million. The financial services firm Lehman Brothers acquired the building shortly afterward for $27.5 million. According to the Times, Lehman Brothers had been "ridiculed" for buying the building at that price. Lehman Brothers felt that it would be economically inefficient to use the tower as an office building because it was so small, so the firm decided to market the tower as a location for advertising. The entire exterior of One Times Square above the ticker was modified to add a grid frame for mounting billboard signs. Dow Jones & Company started operating the zipper in June 1995, and Dow Jones replaced the zipper in mid-1997, donating part of the old zipper to the Museum of the City of New York. Sony's Jumbotron operated until 1996. Alongside its use for advertising and news, it was also frequently used by the producers of the late-night talk show Late Show with David Letterman, who could display a live feed from its studio on the screen as well. As a cost-saving measure, Sony declined to renew its lease of the space, leading to the subsequent removal of the Jumbotron in June 1996. Due to its frequent use by Late Show, its producer Rob Burnett jokingly considered the removal of the Jumbotron to be "a sad, sad day for New York." The last office tenants moved out of the building in 1996, The complex would include a four-story restaurant on the roof. Jamestown ownership Late 1990s and 2000s Lehman Brothers sold One Times Square in June 1997 to Jamestown L.P. for about $110 million, four times more than what Lehman Brothers had paid for the building just two years earlier. Sherwood Equities owned a minority stake in the building and was the leasing agent for the retail space. The store was known as "1 Toon Square", a reference to its address. In advance of the 1999–2000 New Year's celebrations, the ball atop One Times Square's roof was replaced once again. After a portion of the building's exterior signs collapsed in March 1999, the New York City Department of Buildings ordered that four of the building's billboards be removed. Time Warner announced in mid-2001 that it would close the Warner Bros. store that October due to a decline in business. Time Warner continued to pay rent for the vacant retail space. In 2002, plans were announced for a 7-Eleven convenience store, the Times Square Brewery, and Two Boots Pizza in One Times Square. However, the planned 7-Eleven store was ultimately canceled. Jamestown then repaired 450 panels on the building's facade in the mid-2000s. During this project, one of the facade's panels fell to the ground in 2004, injuring two pedestrians. Due to the building's small size, it only housed a single office tenant during the 2000s and 2010s: the production company in charge of the Times Square Ball drop. In early 2006, the lower floors were occupied by a pop-up store operated by J. C. Penney and known as The J. C. Penney Experience. The pharmacy chain Walgreens leased the entire building in 2007, paying $4 million yearly. The chain had previously operated a store in the building for four decades until 1970. Walgreens opened a new flagship store in the space in November 2008. As part of the store's opening, Gilmore Group designed a digital sign for the facade, constructed by D3 LED. The sign ran diagonally up the western and eastern elevations of the building and contained 12 million LEDs, surpassing the nearby Nasdaq MarketSite sign as the largest LED sign in Times Square. The sign operated 20 hours a day and advertised Walgreens's products. The ground level would also be renovated to provide an expanded entrance to the New York City Subway's Times Square–42nd Street station, directly underneath the building. Work on the subway entrance was originally supposed to be completed in 2018, but the MTA did not start construction on the 42nd Street Shuttle reconstruction project until August 2019. As part of the redevelopment of One Times Square, a new staircase entrance with a glass canopy, as well as a new elevator entrance, would be built. Jamestown announced in January 2019 that it planned to renovate the building and lease the upper floors, which at the time were completely blocked by billboards. Jamestown also planned to either terminate Walgreens's lease or reduce the size of the pharmacy. The Real Deal magazine estimated that Jamestown was earning $23 million per year from the building's billboards. The Walgreens store at the building's base had closed permanently by 2022. Jamestown started renovating 1 Times Square in May 2022 at a cost of $500 million. To finance the project, Jamestown received a $425 million mortgage from JPMorgan Chase, a building loan of $88.7 million, and a project loan of $39.8 million. S9 Architecture designed the renovation with DeSimone as structural engineers, while AECOM and Tishman Construction were the general contractors. The advertising boards on the northern facade remained in place, but the advertisements on the other three facades were removed. The 1960s marble facade would be removed and replaced with a glass curtain wall. The structure would contain only one story of office space after it reopened. The building's observation deck would be open year-round, and the Times Square Ball would drop several times a day throughout the year. The Durst Organization, which owned the neighboring 4 Times Square, sued the city's DOB in July 2022, claiming that the scaffolding around One Times Square would attract crime while worsening congestion on the sidewalk. The renovated tower topped out on December 7, 2023, and by August 2025, it was expected to open later on December 31, 2025. New York YIMBY reported that the renovation project was finished by January 2026. == Architecture ==

Eidlitz & McKenzie had originally designed One Times Square in the neo-Gothic style. The actual height from street level to roofline was , making it the city's second tallest office building when it opened, after the Park Row Building. Without its tower, the Times Building only measured tall. David W. Dunlap of the Times wrote that, when the building was completed, it was in his employer's "self-interest to assert that building heights ought to be measured from the lowest level." The southern portion of the building extended about back from 42nd Street and was taller than the northern portion. The first three stories were elaborately decorated and were clad entirely in cream-colored Indiana limestone, a material chosen for its durability. There were elaborately carved doorways on both Broadway and Seventh Avenue, as well as a horizontal band course of limestone above the third story. The windows at the base were smaller than they normally would have been, thereby giving the impression of massiveness. Above the 16th story, the roof of the northern section was made of wire glass. Each corner of the tower contained projecting piers, designed in a manner that resembled turrets. In 1965, the building's original facade was replaced with 420 concrete and marble panels. Each panel was made of a layer of precast concrete covered with a layer of white Vermont marble. Twenty of these panels measured and the other 400 panels measured . The rear of each panel was anchored to the building's superstructure. Progressive Architecture magazine criticized the renovation as "a face-lifting job of thorough-going blandness". In addition, a cantilevered observation deck was installed outside the building, supported by a truss weighing . The foundation itself consists of cast-steel footings, above which rise the building's steel columns. The footings each measure across, and their centers are spaced apart. Each steel footing is placed atop a heavy granite block measuring across and thick, which in turn rests directly on the underlying bedrock. Structural loads from the upper stories are carried down into the footings and then spread across the layer of bedrock, which carries a load of . The subway station itself is placed below ground and has a ceiling high. The pillars of the subway tunnel were covered in brick The northern wall rests on a plate girder above the subway tunnel; at the time of construction, it was the heaviest girder in the world to be installed in an office building. This girder measures long and consists of a group of three I-beams, which collectively measure wide and high. The first system consists of the girders on each story, which are welded to the building's columns via gusset plates. The partition walls were constructed of square bricks, which were then finished in plaster. The building's elevator shafts were surrounded by walls made of fire-clay, which were then covered with a layer of tiled brick. There were seven oak-framed revolving doors in the building: two at the Broadway entrance to the lobby, one at the 42nd Street entrance, and four leading to the subway station in the basement. The arcade was closed in 1967 due to high crime, but an archway leading from the station to One Times Square's basement remained visible until the 2000s. The rest of the first basement contained storefronts and the ''Times's'' mailing department, while the second basement contained the mailing and repair departments. The third basement level contained the pressroom, which was connected via a freight elevator to the second basement. The first twelve stories above ground were rented out to other tenants, except for the New York Times publication office at ground level. The 13th through 21st stories contained various departments for The New York Times. Each office was decorated with ornamental cornices and red-oak doors. All offices were located within of a window, and the building was narrow enough that there were no light shafts to provide natural light to interior offices. A room near the top of the tower likewise contains the ball's electronics, including its lighting controller and winch. Mechanical features Stairs and elevators were placed on the western side of the building, When the building was constructed, it had seven elevators and over a hundred other motorized appliances, including printing presses, pumps, and fans. Of these, five elevators were for passengers and two were for freight. Two of the building's elevators (one passenger and one freight) ran from the basement to the top story, while the other elevators only ran to the 16th story. Although all the passenger elevators could travel at , one of these elevators could also be used to transport heavy equipment and could be slowed down to , thereby doubling its carrying capacity. During the 2020s, a pair of elevators was constructed between the ground level and the observation deck. Three sewage pumps, with a combined capacity of , were used to pump wastewater out of the building. In addition, there was a gas pipe extending from the cellar to the 16th floor. Outdoor air was drawn into an air-intake opening at street level and through air filters in the basement; the filtered air was then distributed to the offices. On the Seventh Avenue side of the building was a ventilation pipe, which faced the building's outer wall and was surrounded by the stairs, elevators, and restrooms on each floor. During the summer, a large electric fan pushed stale air upward through the ventilation pipe. The building also contained 2,400 electrical outlets and over 6,200 lamps. The offices were illuminated by 150 ornate chandeliers on the 2nd through 14th floors. There originally were of electrical wires and of electrical conduits in the building. ==Billboards==

One Times Square's first electronic billboards were installed in 1996. Sherwood Equities president Brian Turner estimated in 2005 that over 200 million people saw the Times Square Ball drop at the building every year. With growing tourism and high traffic in the Times Square area (with a yearly average of over 100 million pedestriansalongside its prominence in media coverage of New Year's festivities, seen by a wide audience yearly), annual revenue from the signs grew to over $23 million by the year 2012rivaling London's Piccadilly Circus as the most valuable public advertising space in the world. Front billboard and displays A Cup Noodles billboard was added to the front facade of the tower in early 1996, later accompanied by an animated Budweiser sign. The Cup Noodles billboard, operated by Nissin Foods, emitted steam (an effect that had also been used by other Times Square billboards, such as the Camel Cigarettes sign). The Cup Noodles billboard was replaced in 2006 by a General Motors billboard featuring a Chevrolet branded clock. Due to cutbacks resulting from GM's bankruptcy and re-organization, the Chevrolet Clock was removed in 2009 and eventually replaced by a Kia Motors advertisement billboard. This billboard was itself replaced in 2010 by a Dunkin' Donuts display. At the base of the tower, a Panasonic display operated by NBC known as Astrovision was introduced as a replacement for Sony's Jumbotron in December 1996. Sony returned to One Times Square in 2010, replacing the News Corp. Panasonic screen with a new high-definition LED display. In 2019, the individual billboard screens on the front of the tower were replaced by one Samsung LED display, with a resolution of 1312×7380 pixels. The installation of the display necessitated the removal of the Zipper. When the building's 2020s renovation is complete, the structure is planned to have additional electronic displays. Topmost screen A video screen sponsored by ITT Corporation was introduced to the top of the tower, which would feature video advertisements and community service announcements. In 1998, Discover Card replaced ITT Corporation as the operator and sponsor of the topmost screen on One Times Square as part of a ten-year deal. The deal came alongside the announcement that Discover Card would be an official sponsor of Times Square's 1999–2000 festivities. In December 2007, Toshiba took over sponsorship of the top-most screen of One Times Square from Discover Card in a 10-year lease. During its sponsorship, the display featured advertising for Toshiba products, as well as advertising promoting Japanese tourism. Upgrades to the upper portion of One Times Square commenced in 2008, including the installation of new Toshiba high-definition LED displays (known as ToshibaVision), and the redesign of its roof to accommodate a larger New Year's Eve ball, which became a year-round fixture of the building beginning in 2009. Toshiba announced that it would end its One Times Square sponsorship in early 2018, citing ongoing cost-cutting measures. ==References==