Times Square isn't actually a square. It's a bowtie-shaped intersection where Broadway angles across Seventh Avenue, named after the New York Times building that moved here in 1904. What began as Longacre Square became the world's brightest stage when theaters migrated northward in the early 1900s, transforming it from a quiet corner into the engine of American popular entertainment.

The lights didn't happen by accident. One Times Square, the narrow building still standing at the intersection's heart, hosted the newspaper's offices. To celebrate the new location, its owner commissioned an electrician to construct a lighted ball and lower it at midnight on New Year's Eve—originally a marketing stunt that became the most watched moment in the global calendar. By the 1970s, the square had descended into seediness, but a miraculous comeback restored it as one of the safest districts in modern New York. Today, 360,000 pedestrians pass through daily.

VoiceMap's tours unpick the theatrical DNA beneath the billboards, tracing how the neighborhoods transformed as theaters, songwriters and publishers followed the money northward. You'll discover how a street performer sued a corporation over his image rights and won millions, why an entire movie crew had to shut down Times Square to film an empty street, and how a wartime photograph became embedded in America's collective memory.