Times Square, New York

When the New York Times erected a new building on 43rd Street at the turn of the 20th century, the neighborhood took on the name "Times Square." A decade later, theater, vaudeville and cabaret migrated to the streets nearby, attracting much tourism by the 1920s. But the market crash of 1929 led to a sharp decline in theater attendance, and to the transformation of performance halls into cheap "grinder" houses that screened sexually explicit films. In the early 1980s, the city made major efforts to restore the neighborhood to its former, more wholesome, glory. Now it is the site of the most famous New year's Eve countdown in the world.