One Times Square, ca. 1908.

The building at the center of the image is the Times Tower, built between 1903-1905 for the New York Times. It was designed by the firm of Eidlitz & MacKenzie in a narrow triangular shape and clad in an intricate granite and terra-cotta facade. On New Year's Eve in 1903 Adolf Ochs, the Times' owner, celebrated the evening and made a show of the new building by setting off fireworks from the roof. This continued yearly until 1907 when Ochs changed the midnight event into the dropping of an illuminated ball from the building's flagpole.

The Times moved out in 1913 and the building was purchased in 1963 by Allied Chemicals which drastically altered the facade, replacing the granite and terra cotta with marble facing. Over the next four decades the building changed hands a number of times. in 1975 it was further altered by architectural firm Gwathmey Siegel. Since 1995 (when it was purchased by Lehman Brothers) the building has been empty of tenants, except for ground level commercial spaces. The building has been used exclusively as an advertising location and for the yearly New Years activities. It is one of the two most valuable public advertising space in the world (the other being Piccadilly Circus in London).