Lockdown empty Time Square New York

Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment center, and neighborhood in the Midtown Manhattan section of New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue. Brightly lit by numerous billboards and advertisements, it stretches from West 42nd to West 47th Streets,[2] and is sometimes referred to as “the Crossroads of the World”,[3] “the Center of the Universe”,[4] “the heart of the Great White Way”, and “the heart of the world”.[8] One of the world’s busiest pedestrian areas,[9] it is also the hub of the Broadway Theater District[10] and a major center of the world’s entertainment industry. Times Square is one of the world’s most visited tourist attractions, drawing an estimated 50 million visitors annually. Approximately 330,000 people pass through Times Square daily,[13] many of them tourists, while over 460,000 pedestrians walk through Times Square on its busiest days.

Formerly known as Longacre Square, Times Square was renamed in 1904 after The New York Times moved its headquarters to the then newly erected Times Building, now One Times Square. It is the site of the annual New Year’s Eve ball drop, which began on December 31, 1907 and continues to attract over a million visitors to Times Square every year.

Times Square functions as a town square, but is not geometrically a square; it is closer in shape to a bowtie, with two triangles emanating roughly north and south from 45th Street, where Seventh Avenue intersects Broadway. Broadway runs diagonally, crossing through the horizontal and vertical street grid of Manhattan laid down by the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811, and that intersection creates the “bowtie” shape of Times Square.

The southern triangle of Times Square has no specific name,[19] but the northern triangle is called Father Duffy Square. It was dedicated in 1937 to Chaplain Francis P. Duffy of New York City’s U.S. 69th Infantry Regiment and is the site of a memorial to him, along with a statue of George M. Cohan,[20] and the TKTS ticket booth.

In 2002, New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani administered the oath of office to the city’s next mayor, Michael Bloomberg, at Times Square after midnight on January 1 as part of the 2001–2002 New Year’s celebration. Approximately 500,000 revelers attended. Security was high following the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, with more than 7,000 New York City police officers on duty in the Square, twice the number for an ordinary year.

Times Square started hosting other major annual events in the 2000s. Since 2002, the summer solstice has been marked by “Mind over Madness”, a mass yoga event involving up to 15,000 people. Tim Tompkins, co-founder of the event, said part of its appeal was “finding stillness and calm amid the city rush on the longest day of the year”.[63][64] Architect Mark Foster Gage proposed and designed the original Times Square Valentine’s Day heart in 2009. Since then, designing the heart has become an annual competition.[65][66]

In February 2011, Times Square became smoke-free as New York extended the outdoors smoking ban to the area. The measure imposed a $50 fine for any person caught smoking within the area.[67]

From January 29 to February 1, 2014, a “Super Bowl Boulevard” was held on Broadway, especially in Times Square, between 34th and 47th Streets, as part of Super Bowl XLVIII. The boulevard contained activities such as autographs, a 60 feet (18 m)-high toboggan run, and photographs with the Vince Lombardi Trophy.[68][69][70] The area was under increased security and saw over 400,000 people during the period.[71]

Pedestrian plaza
On February 26, 2009, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that traffic lanes along Broadway from 42nd Street to 47th Street would be de-mapped starting Memorial Day 2009 and transformed into pedestrian plazas as a trial until at least the end of the year. The same was done in Herald Square from 33rd to 35th Street. The goal was to ease traffic congestion throughout the midtown grid. The results were to be closely monitored to determine if the project was successful and should be extended.[72] Bloomberg also stated that he believed the street shutdown would make New York more livable by reducing pollution, cutting down on pedestrian-vehicle accidents and helping traffic flow more smoothly.[73]

The pedestrian plaza project was originally opposed by local businesses, who thought that closing the street to cars would hurt business.[74] The original seats put out for pedestrians were inexpensive multicolored plastic lawn chairs, a source of amusement to many New Yorkers; they lasted from the onset of the plaza transformation until August 14, 2009, when they were ceremoniously bundled together in an installation christened Now You See It, Now You Don’t by the artist Jason Peters.