Times Square & Neon
The billboard as spectacle: the electric blaze of the Great White Way, Piccadilly Lights, the neon of Las Vegas, and the spectaculars that turned advertising into architecture.
Part of Billboards
12 moments in this segment.
- — Times Square in its neon heyday. Through the 1930s and '40s, Times Square became the world's most famous canvas of light and advertising.
- — The Camel cigarette 'smoke ring' sign. From 1941, a Times Square billboard blew real smoke rings for a Camel cigarettes ad — a spectacular of its age.
- — The Times Square 'spectacular'. The giant animated 'spectaculars' of Times Square combined lights, motion and even waterfalls into advertising theater.
- — The neon of Las Vegas. The Las Vegas Strip turned the illuminated sign into an art form — the cowboy Vegas Vic and a desert of neon. The subject dates from 1955; this photograph was taken in 2008.
- — The Great White Way. By the 1900s, electric signs blazed so brightly over Broadway that Times Square earned the name 'the Great White Way'.
- — Piccadilly Lights, London. London's Piccadilly Circus has carried illuminated advertising since 1908 — Britain's answer to Times Square. The subject dates from 1930; this photograph was taken in 2012.
- — Times Square today. Modern Times Square is a canyon of screens — a permanent, dazzling storm of digital advertising.
- — The Coca-Cola Times Square sign. Coca-Cola's Times Square sign has glowed in some form since 1920 — one of the longest-running billboards in the world.
- — Mr. Peanut over Times Square. The Planters Mr. Peanut spectacular, top-hatted and monocled, tipped his hat over Times Square for decades.
- — The Glico Running Man, Osaka. Osaka's Glico Running Man sign, glowing over the Dotonbori canal since 1935, is one of Japan's most famous.
- — The Kodak Colorama. From 1950 the giant Kodak Colorama photos filled Grand Central Terminal — the world's largest photographs.
- — The Neon Museum boneyard. Las Vegas's Neon Museum preserves the great dead signs of the Strip in its famous 'boneyard'.
