Times Square seems like the least “forgotten” place in New York, but it is where this website had its start in 1997 with the fading ad for J.A. Keal’s Cariage Manufactory documented by Kevin Walsh. The defining tower at the triangle formed by Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street is One Times Square, where the ball drops on New Year’s Day.
Built in 1904 for the New York Times newspaper, the structure has undergone many cosmetic changes, most recently with a $500 million renovation last year by S9 Architecture. Many of the billboards covering the facade were removed to expose the windows, a skywalk was installed for the public with a $30 fee, and a new subway entrance on Broadway to match the building’s appearance. On his visit to the station in 2013, Kevin documented a covered archway that connected One Times Square to its eponymous subway station. I could not find those arches following the redesign of the shuttle platform near this entrance.
Having a classroom across the street from this tower with a view of Times Sqaure, I have no interest in visiting this new rooftop deck, but looking up from the sidewalk, something about the new One Times Square was missing. There were LED letters running on a wraparound screen advertising the skywalk. In May 2026, I was expecting headlines relating to the Strait of Hormuz, Knicks making the playoffs, and the ongoing war in Ukraine. I understood that with news accessible on our phones, the Motograph News Bulletin felt like an anachronism, but also reassuring in a streetscape that’s constantly changing.
Perhaps at some point the owners of One Times Square will spread the news again on the same wall that began sharing stories in 1928 with Herbert Hoover’s election as president, where crowds looked up in 1945 to read about Japan surrendering which ended World War II, among other historic events. The zipper, as it’s nicknamed, had pauses in the past when the building changed hands.
With brightly lit screens competing for attention, on the street there is an installation from an earlier time when Times Square sought to welcome tourists with a freestanding information center. In 1957, the kiosk was completed with two mosaic maps of the city by Edward Meshekoff. The tiles survived decades of crowds, vandalism, vibrations from the trains underneath, and the kiosk’s transformation in 1997 into an NYPD substation.
The map has two crucifixes marking St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Midtown and Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights, the Star of David for Temple Emanu-El on the Upper East Side, music notes for Radio City Music Hall, dinosaur for the American Museum of Natural History, and giraffe for the Bronx Zoo, among other attractions.
The only attraction here that is no longer with us is the New York Coliseum at Columbus Circle, a Robert Moses creation that was replaced with the Time Warner Center in 2004.
Sergey Kadinsky is the author of Hidden Waters of New York City: A History and Guide to 101 Forgotten Lakes, Ponds, Creeks, and Streams in the Five Boroughs (2016, Countryman Press), adjunct history professor at Touro University and the webmaster of Hidden Waters Blog.
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6/2/26