Herald Square is formed by the intersection of Broadway, Sixth Avenue (a.k.a. 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 now-defunct newspaper formerly headquartered there.
The New York Herald, founded by James Gordon Bennett in 1835, was best known for its sensational coverage of scandal and crime, and for its enormous circulation.
The City of New York acquired the area in 1846 as part of the opening of Bloomingdale Road (now Broadway).
The square contains a huge mechanical clock whose mechanical structures were constructed in 1895 by the sculptor Antonin Jean Carles.
The monument, known as the James Gordon Monument consists of the Goddess of Wisdom, Minerva with her owls in front of a bell, flanked by two bell ringers mounted on a Milford pink granite pedestal. The monument’s bell was designed to chime on the hour. The two seven-foot-tall bronze laborers, nicknamed Stuff and Guff give the appearance of ringing the bell with their mallets, while in actuality is rung by mallets located behind the bell.
The figures and the clock were originally part of the 1894 New York Herald Building that was located at the square. Prior to the demolition of the building in 1921, the figures were removed and reinstalled in the Square in 1940.
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.
Many non-New Yorkers know of Herald Square from the song Give My Regards to Broadway which includes the lyrics “remember me to Herald Square”, or from the fact that Herald Square is the terminus for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, broadcast nationally each year by NBC-TV.
Herald and the neighboring Greeley Squares stand today as a bow-tie square and serve as rest areas for the thousands of shoppers that flood the neighborhood, as a lunchroom for thousands of midtown office workers, and as a stage for product launches, musical performances, and photo and film shoots.
OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/heraldsquare
MAP & DIRECTIONS:
