Herald Square

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Greeley Square

Herald Square, looking up Broadway

New York Herald Building and Herald Square, circa 1895

Looking up from Herald Square to the Empire State Building less than one block away.

Herald Square is formed by the intersection of Broadway, Sixth Avenue (officially named Avenue of the Americas) and 34th Street in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was named for the New York Herald, a newspaper originally headquartered there. The Square also gives its name to the surrounding area. The intersection is a typical Manhattan bow-tie square that consists of two named sections: Herald Square to the north (uptown) and Greeley Square to the south (downtown). Most non-New Yorkers know of of it from the song Give My Regards to Broadway where the singer asks "remember me to Herald Square".

Greeley Square lies between West 32nd Street and West 33rd Street and between Broadway and Sixth Avenue, and is taken up almost entirely by a triangular park.^[1] It is named after Horace Greeley, who was the publisher of New York Tribune, the Herald's rival newspaper. (The two papers later merged to form New York Herald Tribune.) ^[2]^[3] There is a statue of Greeley inside the park, created in 1890 by Alexander Doyle^[1] The small park has great deal of charm, it is planted with trees and shrubbery, enclosed by a wrought-iron fence, and provided with inviting chairs, tables and a restaurant kiosk.

Herald Square itself, at the north end of the square between West 34th Street and West 35th Street, was formerly the site of the New York Herald Building. It contains a huge mechanical clock whose mechanical structures were constructed in 1895 by the sculptor Antonin Jean Carles.^[1]

The area around Herald Square along Broadway and 34th Street is a retail hub. The most notable attraction is the Macy's flagship department store, the largest in the United States (and according to Guinness World Records the largest in the world). In 2007, Macy's, Inc. moved its corporate headquarters to that store after renaming from Federated. Macy's archrival Gimbels was also located in the neighborhood until 1984; in 1986 the building became the Manhattan Mall.^[4] Other past retailers in the area included E.J. Korvette, Stern's, and Abraham & Straus. J.C. Penney has announced plans to open its first Manhattan store in the former A&S location inside Manhattan Mall.

The square is roughly equidistant between Madison Square to the south, and Times Square to the north. Herald Square's south side borders Koreatown, at West 32nd Street. The area is served by the 34th Street-Herald Square station (B D F V N Q R W) and the 33rd Street station of the PATH.

Herald Square circa 1907, looking west on 34th Street to the left, Broadway in the middle and the elevated train tracks running north up the Avenue of the Americas (6th Avenue)

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b ^c White, Norval & Willensky, Elliot; AIA Guide to New York City (2000) 4th Edition; New York Chapter, American Institute of Architects; Crown Publishers. p. 225.
^ Kenneth T. Jackson: The Encyclopedia of New York City: The New York Historical Society; Yale University Press; 1995. P. 140.
^ Henry Moscow:The Street Book; Fordham University Press 1978. P. 60.
^ Lueck, Thomas J. "Fortune's Smile Glimmers on Herald Sq.", The New York Times, September 10, 1989. Accessed October 20, 2007. "Although Macy's survived and has prospered as the Herald Square landmark, Ohrbach's, Korvettes and Gimbels had closed by 1984.... The 260,000-square-foot (24,000 m²) Herald Center, which opened in 1986 as the city's largest vertical mall, has so far shown little prospect of success."