Times Square

Times Square: The One Tourist Site New Yorkers Skip That You Should See Once

Times Square is the intersection of Seventh Avenue and Broadway between 42nd and 47th Streets. On a busy day, 330,000 people pass through. The billboards rise seven stories. The visual experience of standing at the center of the square at night, surrounded on all sides by illuminated advertisements running the full height of buildings, is genuinely unlike anything else available in the United States. It is commercial, garish, loud, and American in the particular way that the Las Vegas Strip is American – unashamedly what it is, without any ambivalence about that.

New Yorkers avoid it. First-time visitors feel obligated to see it. Both responses are understandable, but the right answer is: go at night, spend an hour, see the actual spectacle, and then use the rest of the visit for everything else the city has.

The TKTS Booth

The TKTS booth at the southern end of Father Duffy Square sells same-day Broadway tickets at 20 to 50 percent discount. Availability changes constantly; the TKTS app lets you check pricing before walking over. Lines are longest in early afternoon and shortest in the last 30 minutes before curtain. Next-day matinee tickets are also available, which is useful if you want a specific show and cannot commit to same-day.

Full-price orchestra tickets for major Broadway musicals run $120 to $250. Rush tickets through TodayTix and individual theatre lottery apps can be $30 to $50 and are worth trying. Hamilton, The Lion King, Wicked, and Chicago are the consistent sell-outs; the TKTS discount is less useful for those because they rarely need discounting. Straight plays, revivals, and new productions typically have more availability and are frequently as good as the branded spectacles.

Eating Near Times Square

Times Square restaurants are 30 to 40 percent more expensive than comparable restaurants elsewhere in Manhattan, and the captive tourist audience means quality correlates poorly with price. Sardi’s on West 44th Street has been feeding the theatre district since 1927, the walls are covered in celebrity caricatures, and the prices reflect the history rather than the tourist footfall. Bryant Park six blocks south has better food at more reasonable prices. For a genuine New York meal before or after a show, the Hell’s Kitchen neighbourhood directly west has developed into one of Manhattan’s better restaurant concentrations.

What Is Actually Nearby

The Museum of Modern Art is six blocks north on 53rd Street. Admission is $25; free on Fridays from 5:30 to 9pm. The collection includes Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, van Gogh’s Starry Night, Matisse’s Dance, and the permanent contemporary galleries. The sculpture garden is worth separate time.

Grand Central Terminal is 10 blocks east. Walking through it at rush hour, standing on the balcony overlooking the main concourse with the celestial ceiling above the commuters below, is one of the specific New York experiences that photographs do not convey.

The New York Public Library main branch on Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street is one of the best Beaux-Arts buildings in the country, free to enter, and the Rose Main Reading Room on the third floor – 52 feet high, running the full length of a city block – is one of the more extraordinary public interiors in any American city.

The Pedestrian Plaza

The block of Broadway between 44th and 47th Streets was closed to vehicles in a 2009 experiment that became permanent. The public tables and chairs in the plaza do not require a purchase. Sitting down is free. The costumed characters in the plaza will take photographs with you and then request a tip; your engagement is optional.