Darcy Tell traces the 100-year story of Times Square using rare photographs and hand-colored lantern slides, maps, restaurant menus, theater programs, magazine covers, postcards, sheet music, and archival documents. Presenting even the most familiar elements of Times Square lore with fresh detail, she pays special tribute to adman extraordinaire Douglas Leigh's arrival in the early 1930s, which brought a stunning new era of electric brightness and innovation. Leigh dominated the Broadway streetscape for nearly 50 years, stopping traffic with special-effects billboards such as the legendary Camel cigarettes "smoke rings" sign. Covering both Times Square's infamous decline as well as its hard-wrought, present-day revival, this is the first pictorial history of the legendary American landmark.--From publisher description.