Adam Clark Estes was taken in by the majesty of New York’s Times Square:

• Times Square supports 385,000 jobs. Everybody from those designing the content on the digital billboards, to those working in the power plants that keep it all running, and even those who clean the rooms of hotels overlooking it owe their livelihood to the Square.
• Times Square creates about $110 billion every year – 11% of New York City’s economic output.
• It costs about $368 million a year in water, electricity, and greenhouse gasses to keep it all running.
• Digital billboards are so crucial to the city’s identity that a zoning code requires buildings in the area to have illuminated signs that meet minimum size requirements.
• The area was called Times Square after the New York Times set up an office there.
• That office has since been abandoned, and is now completely empty. It was more profitable for the real estate owners to just cover it in ads.
• Up to 460,000 pedestrians walk through and enjoy the spectacle every day.

Read more about the billboards, how they work, their past, and an overarching history of one of New York’s most famous landmarks over here.

Source: Gizmodo