Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in the Midtown Manhattan section of New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway , Seventh Avenue , and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent Duffy Square , Times Square is a bowtie -shaped plaza five blocks long between 42nd and 47th Streets.
One of the world's busiest pedestrian areas, [ 3 ] it is also the hub of the Broadway Theater District [ 4 ] and a major center of the world's entertainment industry. Times Square, specifically the intersection of Broadway and 42nd Street, is the eastern terminus of the Lincoln Highway , the first road across the United States for motorized vehicles. Times Square functions as a town square , but is not geometrically a square. It is closer in shape to a bowtie, with two triangles emanating roughly north and south from 45th Street, [ 18 ] where Seventh Avenue intersects Broadway.
Broadway similarly intersects other north—south avenues at Union Square , Madison Square , Herald Square , and Verdi Square , none of which are squares. Broadway runs diagonally, crossing through the horizontal and vertical street grid of Manhattan laid down by the Commissioners' Plan of , and that intersection creates the "bowtie" shape of Times Square.
Times Square is the official name of the southern triangle, below 45th Street. Duffy of the 69th New York Infantry Regiment. Cohan , [ 25 ] [ 26 ] and the TKTS discount ticket booth for same-day Broadway and off-Broadway theaters that has been at the site since June When Manhattan Island was first settled by the Dutch colonists , three small streams united near what is now the intersection of 10th Avenue and 40th Street. From there the Great Kill wound through the low-lying Reed Valley, known for fish and waterfowl, [ 29 ] and emptied into a deep bay in the Hudson River at the present 42nd Street.
Scott's manor house was at what is currently 43rd Street, surrounded by countryside used for farming and breeding horses. In the first half of the 19th century, it became one of the prized possessions of John Jacob Astor , who made a second fortune selling off lots to hotels and other real estate concerns as the city rapidly spread uptown.
