Bedrich Grunzweig Times Square Movie Theatre Marquee, N.Y., c.1950 Vintage gelatin silver print 9 1/2 X 7 1/2 inches

New York, NY –Times Square, the area around the intersections of Broadway, Seventh Avenue and 42^nd Street, is one of the most intensively bought, sold, and developed plots of land in the world. It is also where much of modern American culture has been invented and reinvented, tested, exploited, interpreted and reinterpreted, and displayed. Even those who have only experienced the Times Square of the 21^st century, booming with tourists and theatre-goers, choked with New Year’s Eve revelers and blazing advertising and megastores, cannot resist the lingering images of past incarnations.

At the Crossroads of Desire: A Times Square Centennial looks back on how Times Square has evolved over the past century as a nexus for the real estate, journalism, advertising, and entertainment industries, at the same time that it has served as a crucible for changing notions of urban planning, morality and public display—a crossroads of desire in its many forms.

The Byron Company Times Building, 1904 Gelatin silver print The Museum of the City of New York The Byron Collection

On April 8, 1904, New York City Mayor George B. McClellan officially renamed Longacre Square shortly after The New York Times began construction of its new headquarters building on 43^rd street. Later that year the official opening of the Times Building was commemorated by a New Year’s Eve spectacular that has become a tradition continuing to this day. The history of Times Square over the next 100 years became the history of modern America. It is where Americans discovered ways to entertain themselves, and where businesses (and advertisers) learned to profit from it. While Times Square, in its latest reinvention, has been radically changed, it is still manufacturing desire, now more overtly on a national and international scale.

The exhibition is organized chronologically through a series of six themes that have come to symbolize the history of Times Square: a century of building and planning; the crowd; entertaining America; fantasy and desire; signs of the times; and making news. Despite all of its transformations, these consistent themes have kept Americans fascinated with Times Square since its inception.

Times Square may be the most photographed space in the world. Kodak estimates that in today’s world of digital point-and-shoots and camera phones, nearly 100 million pictures of Times Square are taken a year. Included in the exhibition are the works of many of the great photographers and filmmakers spanning the past century, who were drawn to the unique light and social atmosphere that attracted millions in the same way. Among the photographers featured are William Klein, Rudy Burckhardt, Weegee, and Robert Frank.

Dennid Stock, James Dean, 1956 Vintage gelatin silver print 9 3/8 X 7 1/2 inches Dennis Stock/MAGNUM Photos

With each generation building directly atop the one before, we are only left with pieces of what the space once was. At the Crossroads of Desire: A Times Square Centennial presents a collection of these items from Times Square’s past – images of Hubert’s Dime Museum and Flea Circus on 42^nd Street, Times Square subway signs and adult-themed movie posters, postcards of old Broadway – creating a visual reminder of what Times Square was, and what it has become.

At the Crossroads is curated by historian Max Page and organized by the AXA Gallery in partnership with the Times Square Alliance. [The exhibition was originally planned to be shown at the New-York Historical Society earlier this year.] The AXA Gallery is sponsored by AXA Financial and its subsidiary The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States. Additional assistance has been provided by AXA Art Insurance.

Max Page is an Associate Professor of Architecture and History at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, where he teaches urban, architectural, and public history. He is author of The Creative Destruction of Manhattan, 1900-1940 (University of Chicago Press, 1999), which won the Spiro Kostof Award of the Society of Architectural Historians for the best book on architecture and urbanism. Max Page is also a 2003 Guggenheim Fellow.

AXA Gallery presents works from all fields of the visual arts, with a special emphasis placed on exhibitions that would not otherwise have a presence in the city. The AXA Gallery is located in the atrium lobby of Equitable Tower, 787 Seventh Avenue at 51st Street, in New York City. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 11am - 6pm, and Saturday, noon to 5pm. The Gallery is closed on Sundays. Admission is free.

The Times Square Alliance, founded in 1992, works to improve and promote Times Square so that it retains the creativity, energy and edge that have made it an icon for entertainment, culture and international urban life for a century. In addition to providing safety and sanitation services, the Alliance co-coordinates numerous major events in Times Square like New Year’s Eve, manages an Information Center and advocates on behalf of its constituents with respect to a host of public policy, planning and quality-of-life issues.