New Times Square Exhibition Celebrates New Year’s Eve Every Day

Since its installation in 1928, the news ticker that wraps around One Times Square has announced the Stock Market crash of 1929, the end of World War II, the moon landing and numerous presidential election results. Now it is also advertising a new immersive exhibition that take place inside the building itself.

Times Travel, a “multi-sensory, experiential journey,” opened this August at One Times Square, the previous home of The New York Times and the focal point of the Times Square New Year’s Eve party. The experience brings visitors through the history of the building and reveals the mechanics behind one of the world’s most widely viewed events, converting the tower where the ball drops every December 31 into a “year-round destination.”

The 26-story building was constructed in 1904 to be a new home for The New York Times, which had outgrown its previous offices. The strategic location right atop a new subway station allowed the newspaper to deliver downtown fast. The then-publisher Adolph Ochs, keen to host a NYE celebration to draw attention to the paper’s new headquarters, but hindered by a recent citywide fireworks ban, started the now-iconic ball drop tradition to ring in 1908.

Though the fast-growing newspaper outgrew One Times Square in eight short years, the tradition stuck. The building itself thereafter became most valued not for what it had inside, or for the news that came out of it, but for its optimally placed and highly visible façade. First came the news ticker, in 1928, which New Yorkers keenly watched the following year to keep up with the latest in the stock market crash. The billboards were added in the 1990s; today, running an ad on them can cost between $500k to $1.5 million a month.

In 2022, the real estate firm Jamestown, which had purchased the building in 1997, announced a $500 million redevelopment to transform the landmark into a visitor center—thus opening the previously uninteresting interior to the public. In addition to the new Times Travel experience and observation deck, the building would rent out 12 floors for events and other branded experiences (So far there’s one about candy). Writing about the project when it was proposed, Curbed summed it up as a maneuver to take a building that was little more than a bulletin board and “turn the inside of [it] into ad space as well.”

The visit begins in the basement, where guests meet Mattie, the AI host named after Adolph Och’s youngest sister, Mrs. Mattie Ochs Talimer. She accompanies visitors in an elevator up to the 16th floor, where they continue on foot through four floors of simulations.

First, visitors return to 1904 to join immigrant construction workers atop the in-progress One Times Square, which was set to be the tallest building in Manhattan. Next, they soar over the city in a spaceship. Then they take a cab ride through the streets of Times Square, stopping momentarily in various decades to catch the era’s vibes; voice actors call out names of then-famous entertainers in strong New York accents, passersby wear era-appropriate outfits, and billboards advertise the decade’s popular Broadway shows. Times Travel lives up to its name here—and the travel happens fast.

The exhibition generally keeps the information light but offers proactive visitors opportunities to learn more. They can swipe through interactive screens for details about the historic NYE balls (there are nine total) and even read old-fashioned text on walls. Visitors who chose to read might learn, for example, that Adolph Ochs adopted the ball drop idea from maritime tradition, where ships at sea set their chronometers according to balls that drop at on-land observatories. Or that despite all the technology that goes into the modern-day ball drop, there is still a human whose job it is to press the button that initiates the sixty-second descent every December 31.

Jean-Francois Talbot, Executive Creative Director at Behavior Interactive, the company behind the content and design of Times Travel, told Straus that the research process for the exhibition included trips to the modern NYT headquarters for photos and other archival information.

Right before the end of the experience, guests enter Eternal Midnight, which is exactly what it sounds like: New Year’s Eve on repeat. It is a room that mimics Times Square on December 31; news tickers line the walls, retired NYE balls hang from the ceiling, and confetti lines the floors. It is a room designed with Instagram in mind; there is even marking on the floor for the perfect “selfie spot.” There is also a place for guests to submit a New Year’s wish, which will later fall as confetti at the actual 2027 NYE celebration.

Delfin Ortiz, General Manager at One Times Square, told Straus that at Times Travel, “We say ‘Happy New Year’ every day.” In the Eternal Midnight room, it is actually every few minutes; entertainers continually sweep confetti off the floor, refill buckets, and then throw it into the air, exclaiming “Happy New Year!”

The highlight of this experience is the skywalk where it culminates. Unlike some other viewing points in the city, which tower high above all the skyscrapers, this one sits in the canopy of the concrete jungle. From this 360 degree vista, visitors can still see Times Square and the busy pedestrians moving through it, but the noises are just muted enough for a certain calm to settle in.

Immersive experiences came into vogue after the COVID-19 pandemic and have met varying degrees of success since. At their best, they find creative ways to engage visitors in an age of diminished attention. At their worst, they offer Instagram photo ops and little information. Times Travel is a roughly fifty-minute experience whose value seems to depend on visitors’ willingness to go beyond the simulations and engage with the more staid information displays.

Tickets for Times Travel start at $44 and can be purchased for visits through October 30, though the company plans to extend availability soon. To see the current NYE ball, the Constellation ball, and take home one of the 5,280 crystals used in the 2026 celebration (the crystals are updated annually), visitors can pay an extra fee onsite or purchase tickets for the whole package for $155 online.