One Times Square

One times square.

When it comes to media and the urban condition, Times Square has, at least in the past few decades, held a bit of a prominent place.  Its no surprise that when looking for a site for some sort of intervention dealing with technology, media, and interaction, that times square would surface as a possible choice.  The surprise came when I learned that the building at 1 Times Square stands empty and serves the sole purpose as a sort of structure for advertisements.  The relationship between the internal void of the building against the urban density of the city along with that of the architecture of the building versus the image of the façade is very rich.  But before we get into Subject-object relationships and notions of appearance over existence, we must take a look into the historical processes that manifested in the particular condition at 1 times. 

In 1904 the original 1 times square building was completed as the head quarters for the New York Times, a news and media power house in the day and currently.  It was the second tallest building in Manhattan and was constructed in the classical beaux-arts style giving the, at the time decidedly conservative news organization, the image or permanence and prominence it wanted.  Upon the opening of the building the plaza outside took on a name change and would from then on be known as Times Square.  The Times opened their offices in the building on Jan 1^st of 1904 and began the year with the first New Years Eve celebration and the first dropping of the ball, a celebration that continues to this day as a major media event around the world.  All of these were calculated events by the New York Times to show its image as the future of news.  Within 10 years the New York times had received its first wireless transmission from a naval battle and within the next ten had put up the first ‘news ticker’ on the building at 1 times sq.  This ticker is the sign that scrolls the news around the building bringing headlines to the people in Times Square in ‘real time’.

In the 1960’s the building was handed over to the Allied Chemical Co. and would under go several changes.  The Buildings deemed out-of-style beaux-arts façade was taken down and replaced with an art deco one.  This would mark a shift in image from the state apparatus and its ties with classicism, to the corporate apparatus and its foothold in modernism.  This new façade however would also seem to break with the image of the building as being that which is relatively solid and conservatively punctured and offer a new image.  This new image being one, which is a bit, more open.  The art deco façade would introduce large vertical expanses of glass openings allowing one to begin to see from Times Square into the building’s interior spaces. 

Today the image we see is very different.  The openings of the art deco façade sit in shadow behind a new façade of advertisements offering a show of how the media industry has dominated and ultimately valued the image over the architecture.  Its still a corporate model in that the images over take the architecture simply because façade space for advertisements is worth more than the interior space of the building, but something is different.  Now we have the Void.