Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Panorama from the Times Building, New York - 1905



Photographed April 11, 1905.
American Mutoscope and Biograph Company
Location: Broadway and 7th Avenue, between 42nd and 43rd Streets
Camera: Wallace McCutcheon
The view is from the top of 1 Times Square Originally named Longacre Square, it was renamed Times Square on April 8, 1904, by proclamation of Mayor George B. McClellan, Jr. at the urging of Adolph Ochs, owner and publisher of the New York Times. It is also known as 1475 Broadway, New York Times Building and New York Times Tower. The north end later became Duffy Square. The building is a 25 story, 365 foot (110.6 m) high skyscraper at 42nd and Broadway in Times Square. It was the second tallest building in the world when it opened.
The camera pans to the north over the tops of the buildings from Bryant Park, south of 42nd Street (behind the New York Public Library) [0:39] up 6th Avenue to the Hippodrome Theatre, between 43rd & 44th Streets [1:04]. A marquee on the theater reads 'A Yankee Circus On Mars.' The camera continues to rotate toward 44th and 45th Streets between 6th and 7th Avenues, until coming to rest looking directly north up Times Square to 46th Street, where Broadway (left) and 7th Avenue (right) diverge again.
The Hippodrome Theatre [1:04] also opened in 1905 and was, at the time, New York's largest indoor stage. It was built and owned by Frederick Thompson, the man responsible for creating Luna Park in Coney Island. The Hippodrome closed in 1939.
Recommended reading:
AIA Guide to New York City
- Norval White and Elliot Willensky
(The most essential reference guide to New York's architecture)
The Devils Playground / A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square - James Traub
The Kid of Coney Island / Fred Thompson and the Rise of American Amusements - Woody Register

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