AJHA 2007 – RICHMOND

DALE CRESSMAN, BRIGHAM YOUNG UNV (CRESSMAN@BYU.EDU)

Research in Prog ress newspaper sold Times Tower in a waning interest in the sign, as
News in Lights: The 1963. A successor to the sign the newspaper noted election
continues to operate on the c row d s d e c l i n i n g s i g n i f i c a n t l y
Times Square Zipper building in 2007. during the 1950s. Meanwhile, the
When Herbert Hoover was A “ribbon of light” 380 feet Times Square area was in
elected president on November 6, long and five feet high, the sign economic decline, its reputation
1928, thousands circled Times Tower along the made seedier as movie houses were
of New Yorkers building’s replaced by adult bookstores and
learned the fourth-floor peep shows. By 1960, Times
news from T he cor nice. T he executives questioned whether the
Ne w York Times’ T i m e s sign had become an outdated mode
new electric originally of communication. When the
light display on called it newspaper sold Times Tower in
T i m e s To w e r. “ T h e 1963, the zipper was taken down
T he Times had Motograph and scrapped–although it was
barely installed N e w s replaced with a newer version in
the new sign in Bulletin” 1965, after the tower was
time for and later renovated under new ownership.
Election Night, “The New The Times was not the first
where crowds York Times newspaper to use its building to
had been m o v i n g display news or promote the
gathering to electric news newspaper. However, T he Times’
learn of s i g n . ” zipper was a forerunner to the
election results E v e n t u a l l y, e l e c t ro n i c d i s p l ay s t h at n ow
and other it became
breaking news known as
since the “the zipper.”
newspaper had Its 14,800
relocated to amber light
Times Square bulbs spelled
from Park Row in 1905. out seminal news such as the end
Frank C. Reilly, representing of the Second World War.
the Motogram Sign Company of T he sign employed two
New York, proposed the display to magazines that could each be filled
the Times in January 1928, with bulletins consisting of up to
promising that for not more than 700 characters or spaces. Only one
$50,000 the newspaper could have magazine was employed at one
the most unique advertising sign in time, with a second being readied
the country. By the time it was with newer bulletins, to be used
installed, the unique “moving when the news in the first
letter sign” cost nearly $120,000, magazine was no longer wanted;
but the Times would continue to thus, headlines could circle the
use it to display news headlines for building continuously. Bulletins
the next 35 years, until the were constructed in a manner
similar to that of manually setting
type, with an operator inserting dominate Times Square and the
metal characters into a magazine, centers of other large cities. The
which would then travel on a track innovative way in which it
past a series of brushes that were delivered news later influenced the
connected to light bulbs on the design of tickers displayed in the
sign. As the metal letters were lower third of television screens
p r o p e l l e d ov e r t h e b r u s h e s , during news broadcasts. Finally,
electrical current to various light the newspaper’s operation of the
bulbs was established, then broken, sign foreshadowed multimedia
thus lighting the bulbs to duplicate convergence of a later decade.
on the sign what the operator had Drawing on documents from
set in type. the archives of the New York
The sign was the first of its Times Company, this research will
kind in New York City, but trace the origins and construction
eventually was copied, notably by of T he Times’ zipper, describing
Coca Cola in the early 1940s, and the innovations and challenges
by the Columbia Broadcasting connected to its operation, and
System in the late 1950s. It was illustrate its importance in the
the emergence of television that dissemination and the promotion
was thought to have contributed to of news.