Three ways of looking at Times Square

West 47th Street and Broadway (looking south) comes off like a frontier town in this 1878 photo. Check out the dirt roads!

At the time, it was the city’s carriage trade district, home to carriage makers and stables. Soon it would be renamed the more elegant-sounding Longacre Square, after the carriage district in London.

Things changed a lot by 1975, when the above photo was taken. Longacre Square became Times Square in 1904, and the northern end was renamed Duffy Square in 1939.

Today, Times Square the pedestrian mall still has a TKTS kiosk. But Florsheim Shoes and Burger King are gone, and gleaming glass office buildings sparkle along Broadway and Seventh Avenue.

[First two photos from New York Then and Now]