On New Year’s Eve in 1903, there was no countdown to midnight, no ball drop, and no partygoers wearing silly hats in Times Square. In fact, there was no “Times Square.”
But all that changed the following year, when the newspaper publisher Adolph Ochs moved the headquarters of the New York Times from Park Row to West 42nd Street and celebrated with a bash that launched an iconic New Year tradition.
At the turn of the 20th century, Times Square was called Longacre Square. Stables, harness shops and carriage factories—not glitzy theaters and chain stores—lined the intersection of West 42nd Street, Seventh Avenue and Broadway. [...]
August Belmont, the president of the new subway and a New York Times shareholder, was probably the one who suggested the renaming of Longacre Square. He had to have been aware that the Times’ archrival, the New York Herald, had successfully named the intersection of 34th Street, Sixth Avenue, and Broadway – now Herald Square – after itself. “Belmont wanted to get the most bang for the bucks he was putting into the railroad,” said David W. Dunlap, a longtime reporter at the Times’ Metro section.
Mayor George McClellan made the name change official on August 8, 1904. To commemorate the newspaper’s new address, Ochs planned a spectacular street party for December 31, 1904. At the time, New York’s main New Year’s Eve celebration was a relatively somber affair at Trinity Church downtown, where revelers sang hymns and bells clanged at midnight. The Times’ party, in contrast, would usher in 1905 with fireworks, noisemakers and Fanciulli’s Concert Band at the foot of the Times Tower.
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