Times Square is the crossroads of the world, or at least of New York's mythology. Times Square was called Longacre Square until 1904, when the New York Times moved its offices here and convinced the city to rename it and build a subway station. On New Year's Eve of that year the Times threw a fireworks celebration, and the tradition of gathering here for the new year was born.
In 1908 the ball drop was introduced when fireworks were banned. The Times eventually moved out, but the name stuck and the neon stayed. At its 1920s and 30s peak, Times Square's theaters and electric signs made it the most brightly lit block in the world, so dazzling it was called the Great White Way.
By the 1970s it had sunk into squalor. A campaign in the 1990s transformed it into the sanitized tourist spectacle you see today. Look up at the screens and signs crowding the buildings from sidewalk to rooftop; they are the descendants of the hand-painted electrics that first made this intersection a destination.
At night, almost no stars are visible here.