As of Thursday, carrying firearms will be banned in one of the most well-known squares in the world: With a few exceptions, no one will be allowed to carry pistols, revolvers or rifles around New York’s Times Square.
The New York State Congress passed legislation in early July banning people from carrying such weapons in many public places, including government buildings, libraries, health care facilities, parks, subways and major public spaces like Times Square. A similar provision had previously been in effect for decades, but the US Supreme Court had declared it invalid.
The New York Police Department interprets a fairly large area as “Times Square” for the purposes of the new law. The rule provides for an area of around three by twelve blocks in which the gun ban should apply – about 800 meters from east to west and 1000 meters from north to south.
Originally, the “New York Times”, the newspaper after whose headquarters the square was named in 1904, only defined the streets between 42nd and 47th Street on the world-famous Broadway and 7th Avenue as “Times Square”. Before the corona pandemic, around 360,000 people walked through the quarter on an average day, according to the retail association. In 2021 it was about half every day because of the still large declines in tourism.
