Longacre Square Becomes Times Square

Longacre Square had been a scruffy crossroads at 42nd Street and Broadway, named after London's horse-and-carriage hub and known mostly for stables and a hotel. In 1904, New York Times publisher Adolph S. Ochs finished a new skyscraper on the site of the old Pabst Hotel and wanted the neighborhood to carry his paper's name. Mayor George B. McClellan Jr., who needed something to call the new subway stop going in underneath, agreed, and on April 8, 1904, the city officially renamed the area Times Square. Ochs marked his new headquarters that December 31 with a midnight fireworks show off the tower's roof, a stunt that drew crowds and, within a few years, evolved into the ball drop the country still watches.