Time Square, New York City, Manhattan, New York State, United States, North America
Times Square is a major commercial intersection and a neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets. Times Square iconified as The Crossroads of the World, The Center of the Universe, and the The Great White Way is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway Theater District, one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, and a major center of the world's entertainment industry. According to Travel + Leisure magazine's October 2011 survey, Times Square is the world's most visited tourist attraction, hosting over 39 million visitors annually. Approximately 300,000 people pass through Times Square daily. Formerly Longacre Square, Times Square was renamed in April 1904 after The New York Times moved its headquarters to the newly erected Times Building -- now called One Times Square site of the annual ball drop on New Year's Eve. The northern triangle of Times Square is technically Duffy Square, dedicated in 1937 to Chaplain Francis P. Duffy of New York City's Fighting 69th Infantry Regiment; a memorial to Duffy is located there, along with a statue of George M. Cohan, and the TKTS discount theater tickets booth. The stepped red roof of the TKTS booth also provides seating for various events. The Duffy Statue and the square were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001. The original seats put out for pedestrians were inexpensive multicolored plastic lawn chairs, a source of amusement to many New Yorkers. They lasted from the onset of the plaza transformation until August 14, 2009, when they were ceremoniously bundled together in an installation christened Now You See It, Now You Don't by the artist Jason Peters. Although the plaza had mixed results on traffic in the area, injuries to motorists and pedestrians decreased, fewer pedestrians were walking in the road and the number of pedestrians in Times Square increased. The plastic chairs were shortly replaced by sturdier metal furniture, and on February 11, 2010, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that the pedestrian plazas would become permanent. In February 2011, Times Square became smoke free as New York extended the outdoors smoking ban to the area. The measure fines any person smoking within the area a fee of $50. On May 1, 2010, Times Square was evacuated from 43rd to 46th Street following the discovery of a car bomb. It was found to be a failed bombing. Times Square has been featured countless times in literature, on television, in films -- including the 1980 film Times Square, which featured a punk rock/new wave soundtrack -- in music videos and recently in video games, such as Grand Theft Auto IV, in which a recreation of the Times Square area is included in the game's fictional Liberty City setting, and Battlefield 3, where the final fight with the main antagonist takes place, where the player must stop him from detonating a nuke in the square. Times Square is also portrayed in video game Crysis 2, in which player must fight off attacking alien forces in order to assist US Marines to evacuate the area. An immediately recognizable location, Times Square has been frequently attacked and destroyed in a number of movies, including Knowing, when a solar flare destroys New York City, Deep Impact, when a tsunami created from a meteor impact destroys New York City, Stephen King's The Stand, where the intersection is overcome by total anarchy, the ending of Captain America, and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Films have also employed the opposite tactic, depicting the typically bustling area as eerily still, such as in Vanilla Sky, as well as the post-apocalyptic I Am Legend, in which Will Smith and his dog go hunting for deer in the deserted urban canyon. Times Square was also depicted in the 2011 movie, New Year's Eve, and was also seen in the festival battle scene in the 2002 film Spider-Man. Times Square was featured in 2012 when an announcement about the apocalypse from the President of the United States was occurring. It included the area being crowded and NYPD officers.