Broadway between 42nd and 47th Streets is a plaza now, and Seventh Avenue is still open to traffic through the middle of the square.
What Times Square looks like
Broadway has been closed to traffic from 42nd to 47th Street since 2009. Snøhetta rebuilt that ground in granite in 2016. was never closed and still runs through the middle of the square. is the triangle north of 45th Street, with the TKTS booth under red glass steps.
Permits split the way the ground does. The Broadway plazas go through the Street Activity Permit Office, through Parks. Filming goes to the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment.
The Times Square Alliance counted about 220,000 people entering a day in 2024. On the heaviest days it is 330,000. Signs on the plaza read PEDESTRIAN FLOW ZONE, KEEP MOVING.
On lots between 43rd and 50th Streets fronting Broadway or , the city sets a minimum area of lit sign for each foot of frontage. No permit is issued until the drawings show enough power to run it. Brightness is measured in Light Units Times Square. The signs stay lit from dusk until one in the morning.
Some of the buildings under them are older than the rule. The at Broadway and 46th Street is a shoe shop of 1926, its lettering still cut under the cornice and the steel frame of a screen on the roof.
Most theatres are on the side streets, not on the square. Seven stand on between Broadway and , and runs from that block through to West 44th Street. The is on the north side of 44th.
Films shot in Times Square
Vanilla Sky emptied the square for one Sunday morning in 2000. Birdman used a working Broadway theatre and the crowd outside it.
Vanilla Sky, 2001
The Broadway plaza looking south from 45th Street, on ground that was roadway when the scene was shot. Street View
On 12 November 2000 the production held Broadway and between West 42nd and West 47th Streets for the early hours of a Sunday and shot David Aames running through an empty Times Square. None of it is computer generated. The news ticker was showing the Bush and Gore election count at the time, so the NASDAQ sign was changed afterwards to keep the film from being dated. The Aames Publishing interiors were shot in the Condé Nast Building at 4 Times Square over a Christmas break, when the offices were empty.
Birdman, 2014
West 44th Street outside the St. James Theatre, looking east toward Broadway. Street View
Riggan Thomson stages his play at the , 246 West 44th Street between Seventh and s. The stage and the auditorium are the real theatre. The dressing rooms and corridors are sets built at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens. When Riggan is locked out in his underwear he goes round the block to and back through the square, which was shot after midnight with extras close around Michael Keaton and real bystanders further out. The bar where he argues with the critic is the Rum House in the Hotel Edison at 228 West 47th Street.
What Times Square can double for
Times Square can stand in for the middle of New York, a city square lit by advertising and the Broadway theatre district.
