100 Candles for “Center” of New York

With cake, confetti, acrobats and no small measure of pride, New Yorkers on Wednesday celebrated the 100th anniversary of Times Square -- a destination and neon-lighted symbol for millions throughout the world.

“Times Square is New York, and it has been for a long time,” said Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who spoke at the party honoring the square. “When you talk to anybody around this country and around the world, that’s what New York is.”

Visited by almost 37 million people a year, it is, among many things, site of the world’s most famous New Year’s Eve celebration and gateway to the city’s theater district.

Wednesday’s party, punctuated by the noise of passing traffic, began nine months of events that will include a public art program, a design awards competition, a fall gala, exhibitions at the New York Historical Society and what Bloomberg promised would be, on Dec. 31, its best-ever New Year’s Eve celebration.

On April 8, 1904, New York Mayor George B. McClellan, whose father was a Civil War general on the Union side, signed a document renaming Long Acre Square, which had been the site of an exclusive neighborhood created by the Astor family in the mid 1800s.

The name Times Square honored the choice of the New York Times to build on the square, on a triangle bounded by Broadway, 42nd Street and 7th Avenue. Today, the newspaper is housed nearby on West 43rd Street and plans are underway to build a new headquarters on 8th Avenue.

Adolph S. Ochs, the paper’s publisher at the time of the naming, knew that a subway stop was planned in the area, and that the square would soon become an important center of commerce.

It did -- though over the years Times Square saw dramatic changes in its fortunes. In the 1970s, crime soared and shops selling pornography were common.

In the 1990s, a massive revival began, and today the square is the site of huge hotels and such corporations as Conde Nast and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.

Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., chairman of the New York Times Co. and the newspaper’s publisher, told the party’s guests “it is a matter of great pride” for all who work at the company that the square is named after the New York Times.

“The day that ordinance was signed,” he said referring to McClellan’s document, “we ran a headline that said Times Square is now the city’s news center.”

“And I think that might have been a bit presumptuous at the time it was written. But it certainly was prescient because this is the center of New York, and we are delighted to be here enjoying this day with all of you,” Sulzberger said.

Guests ended the ceremony by sampling a 3-foot-tall cake, decorated with a replica of Times Square.