New York Times Building: A Skyscraper Worth a Look

The New York Times Building, completed in 2007, stands 319 meters tall across 52 floors, making it the twelfth tallest of New York's skyscrapers.

It sits on Eighth Avenue, right in Times Square in Midtown Manhattan, and honestly I'm covering it because I'm a New York Times fan XP.

In my opinion it goes pretty much unnoticed architecturally among all the classic and cutting edge buildings in Manhattan, though in its day it was a milestone as one of the first buildings designed to optimize energy use by maximizing natural light.

New York Times Building facts

As the name suggests, the main owner of The New York Times Building is The New York Times, the company that publishes the Times, the International Herald Tribune and The Boston Globe.

Photographs by Annie Leibovitz

One detail that will surely interest photography lovers: renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz was hired to document the construction of this huge tower in a series of 35 images called Building the Times.

She drew on the photographs Margaret Bourke-White and Lewis Hine took in the 1930s of the magnificent Empire State and Chrysler Building, respectively.

New Year's Eve in Times Square

So there's no confusion, let me clear this up: the tradition of ringing in the New Year in Times Square was started in 1907 by the New York Times, which lowered the now century-old crystal ball from its headquarters at One Times Square.

The ball still drops from that building today, even though the New York Times moved its headquarters out of there long ago.

So don't mix up your buildings if you're planning to celebrate New Year's Eve in New York.

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Getting there:
Subway A, C, E. 42 St-Port Authority Bus Terminal station
Subway N, Q, R, S, 7. Times Square-42 St station
Address:
Eighth Avenue, between 40th and 41st Streets

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