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  • By Jess Blumberg
  • Smithsonian magazine, November 2007

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    All the gaudy lights for which New York City's Times Square is known can be traced to an Election Day marvel, Smithsonian archivist Darcy Tell explains in her new book, Times Square Spectacular (HarperCollins). On November 7, 1904, the New York Times said it would announce the presidential election results using a searchlight atop the paper's 24-story headquarters at 42nd Street and Broadway. If the beam pointed east, the next president would be Alton B. Parker. Instead, it pointed west, meaning Theodore Roosevelt would stay in office. The feat, Tell writes, "helped cement Times Square's association with bright, carnival-style lights." The place is still called Times Square, though the Times itself moved to 43rd Street in 1913 and to Eighth Avenue this year.

    All the gaudy lights for which New York City's Times Square is known can be traced to an Election Day marvel, Smithsonian archivist Darcy Tell explains in her new book, Times Square Spectacular (HarperCollins). On November 7, 1904, the New York Times said it would announce the presidential election results using a searchlight atop the paper's 24-story headquarters at 42nd Street and Broadway. If the beam pointed east, the next president would be Alton B. Parker. Instead, it pointed west, meaning Theodore Roosevelt would stay in office. The feat, Tell writes, "helped cement Times Square's association with bright, carnival-style lights." The place is still called Times Square, though the Times itself moved to 43rd Street in 1913 and to Eighth Avenue this year.

     
    Comments

    Can anyone tell me how I can contact Darcy Tell? My family lore has it that my grandfather invented the first sign in Times Square with what seemed to be moving words (fixed light bulbs that alternately flashed on and off to creatre a sense of movement). Please e-mail me at kwalden@bakerred.com. Thank you, Ken Walden

    Posted by Ken Walden on March 24,2008 | 04:33 PM

    Small world. I wanted to contact Darcy Tell is tell her what I thought of her book-loved it. Guess we will have to write her a letter via her publisher.

    Posted by Delmo Walters Jr. on May 26,2008 | 03:38 PM

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