Times Square Tower
1459 Broadway | also 1451 Broadway, 583 7th Avenue, 7 Times Square | Times Square | built 2002
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1876
The eight-story Rossmore Hotel opens on Broadway between 41st and 42nd Streets
Developer George Ross hired John B. Snook, the architect of Grand Central, to design a hotel on Broadway between 41st and 42nd Streets, on the block where Times Square Tower now stands. It opened on February 8, 1876, with 250 rooms, steam radiators, electric bells, Otis elevators and a second-floor dining room seating 300. Ross made the name by joining his own surname to his wife's maiden name, Moore. The hotel went through a series of proprietors before it was renamed the Metropole.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1893
An oyster opener stabs a waiter at the Hotel Metropole and bolts through the cafe past startled drinkers
At about lunchtime on July 7, 1893, employees were eating in the servants' hall of the Hotel Metropole when 23-year-old oyster opener Michael Creegan pulled out a jackknife and stabbed 26-year-old waiter John Roacher in the neck. He shouted that the blow repaid an attempt to poison him, then ran with the bloody knife through the cafe at Broadway and 42nd Street, where patrons sipping mint juleps were startled, and up Seventh Avenue. A crowd brought him back to the hotel, where staff were waiting for an ambulance, and Roacher's condition was reported as serious. The hotel stood on the corner where Times Square Tower now rises.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1901
Bookmaker George Considine and his brothers take over the Metropole, drawing pugilists, chorus girls and Bat Masterson
In March 1901 George, James and John Considine took over the Hotel Metropole, at Broadway and 42nd Street, after several failed operators. George was a bookmaker and John a former theatrical manager, and the two had recently managed the boxer James J. Corbett. With backing from Tammany boss Big Tim Sullivan, they changed the clientele: David Wondrich writes that burlesque stars, ward heelers, pugilists, cardsharps and chorus girls filled the place. The Western gunfighter Bat Masterson, an old friend of Considine's who had relocated to New York, was a regular at a round table there.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1910
The Metropole is slated for demolition in 1910 and replaced by the Heidelberg Building, designed by Henry Ives Cobb
Rumors that the Hotel Metropole would be torn down circulated as early as 1907, but it held on for three more years. On May 5, 1910, The New York Times reported that it would be razed for a fine store and office building, while George Considine had meanwhile taken a 63-year lease on West 43rd Street to build a six-story New Metropole. A $250,000 Heidelberg Building, the work of Henry Ives Cobb, took the hotel's place and was pulled down in 1984. Times Square Tower now covers the site.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1996
A brewpub topped by a British Airways Concorde sign opens on the future tower site
Before the tower, the corner of Broadway and 42nd Street held the Heidelberg Building, a 1909 structure that stood largely empty until it was demolished in 1984 for the 42nd Street redevelopment. In 1996 the Hansens Times Square Brewery opened there, a 240-seat brewpub above the subway entrance, which itself opened in 1997. Its rooftop sign was a 102-foot model of a Concorde in British Airways livery, which came down when demolition for the tower began in 2001.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1998
A Boston Properties team wins the right to buy both southern Times Square sites for $330 million
Prudential opened bidding on the two remaining 42nd Street sites in March 1998, offering more than $200 million in tax breaks for the pair. A joint venture of George Klein, the Blackstone Group and Boston Properties won the right to buy both for $330 million. Boston Properties, run by Mortimer Zuckerman, took majority ownership, while Klein's Park Tower kept a small stake. Real estate experts considered the southeast corner, where Times Square Tower now stands, the less valuable of the two because of its small area.
“A joint venture of Klein, Blackstone, and Boston Properties ultimately won the right to acquire both sites for $330 million.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2001
Boston Properties breaks ground days before the September 11 attacks on its Times Square tower
Boston Properties began demolition in early 2001, excavated that June and held a groundbreaking ceremony on September 5, less than a week before the September 11 attacks. The accounting firm Arthur Andersen had agreed to lease about half of the planned tower, and David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was hired to design it. The expected rush of tenants displaced from the World Trade Center never arrived.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2002
Arthur Andersen's lease is canceled after the Enron scandal, leaving the new tower without an anchor tenant
Arthur Andersen was pulled into the Enron scandal in late 2001, and by March 2002 it was considering walking away from its space. Boston Properties wanted the lease ended to avoid prolonged legal trouble, and it formally terminated in June 2002. The developer built on anyway and signed the law firm O'Melveny & Myers, which took eight floors in January 2003, as its first tenant.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2004
Times Square Tower opens, with the clothing retailer Ann Taylor as its largest tenant
The 48-story tower opened in April 2004, and retail marketing began once the construction scaffolding came down. That summer the clothing retailer Ann Taylor leased twelve office floors plus retail space, about 300,000 square feet in all, which lifted the building to roughly three-quarters occupancy. Target leased nine of the exterior billboards that autumn, and a Wachovia sign went up at the top.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2004
SOM's David Childs wraps the tower in diagonal steel bracing and billboard-covered lower floors
Childs designed a 726-foot tower with a steel superstructure whose diagonal braces run across the outer wall. The braces are placed so that every corner office keeps an unobstructed view on at least one side. Electronic billboards cover much of the second through fourth floors, as the 42nd Street Development Project required, to echo Times Square's older signage. The three lowest levels hold shops and a main entrance to the Times Square subway station.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2006
Sixty-three concrete security spheres are removed from the sidewalk and given to the New York Hall of Science
When the tower opened, Boston Properties lined the sidewalk with 63 precast concrete spheres as protection against car bombs. Counterterrorism experts later warned that in a vehicle attack the spheres could themselves become projectiles, so they were taken out in late 2006. They went to the New York Hall of Science, a museum in Queens.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2013
Boston Properties sells a 45 percent stake in the tower's leasehold to Norway's central bank for $684 million
In June 2013 Boston Properties put the tower's leasehold on the market, asking $1.6 billion to start. Ann Taylor, the law firm O'Melveny & Myers and Pryor Cashman were among the largest tenants then, and Ann Taylor and Ruby Tuesday occupied the retail space. In September 2013 the company sold a 45 percent leasehold stake to Norges Bank, Norway's central bank, for $684 million. The site itself is owned by the city's Department of Citywide Administrative Services.
“Boston Properties sold a 45 percent leasehold stake to Norway's central bank Norges Bank in September 2013 for $684 million.”
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Times Square TowerWikipedia
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