Always Times Square?

For the most-visited tourist site in the U.S., New York City’s Times Square had humble beginnings.

Once an area surrounded by countryside and used for farming by American Revolution-era statesman John Morin Scott, the area now known as Times Square fell into the hands of real estate mogul John Jacob Astor in the 1800s.

By the second half of the 19th century, it had become the center of the city’s horse carriage manufacturing industry and home to William H. Vanderbilt’s American Horse Exchange. City authorities named it Long Acre Square, a reference to London’s historic carriage and coach-making district. This name remained until 1904, when The New York Times moved its headquarters to a lavish new skyscraper called One Times Square.

Just eight years later, the newspaper relocated again to a nearby building, but the name Times Square stuck.

You never know!