A few blocks up Broadway from Herald Square is the current center of New York’s theater and entertainment district, Times Square. The Crossroads of the World, during its busiest times sees about 12,000 people an hour cross the street. While the locals do their best to stay away, the electronic billboards are feats of engineering and are definitely impressive to observe – and they are massive.
Times Square in 1904 (top) and Times Square (bottom)
Times Square billboard above American Eagle Outfitters
According to the Times Square Alliance, Times Square billboards on average have more square feet than the average New York City apartment! The average size is 2,013.25 square feet while the average NYC apartment is 784 square feet!
One of the largest Times Square billboards is above the American Eagle Outfitters store. That sign alone has more than 15,000 square feet of advertising screen space, the equivalent of about 19 average-size one-bedroom apartments!
Renting one of the giant ads isn’t cheap either, costing between $1.1 million to $4 million a year to rent ad space in Times Square, according to Investopedia, with the largest billboard costing up to $3M per month. For comparison, the average cost of a TV ad during the Super Bowl came in at about $5 million for 30 seconds.
The I. Miller Building, built between 1927 and 1929 is a refreshing piece of old Times Square from its heyday in the 1920s. It is somehow miraculously immune to the areas many illuminated billboards. In a previous era Israel Miller’s shoe store was the go to place for theater folks. Miller’s passion was designing elegant shoes for elegant women, and his creations graced the feet of some of the most famed actresses of the day.
Lucky Luciano (l.) & Meyer Lansky (r.)
Along the top side of his building you can still see the tag line “The Show Folks Shoe Shop—Dedicated to Beauty in Footwear.” A closer look at the building reveals several statues of the leading ladies of the day in some of their most famous roles: Ethel Barrymore for drama, Marilyn Miller for comedy, Mary Pickford for film, Rosa Ponselle for opera. The I. Miller took a public vote to determine the most popular theater actresses of the day, with the idea of placing statues of them above their new 7th Avenue store. And we’re very happy to see this old facade still visible. Here’s hoping it stays that way.
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