Morning View - New TKTS Booth

Risking the long arm of the Showtune Police, I snuck around the barrier and grabbed this shot of the front side of the new TKTS booth in Times Square, which is due to open this month. The ticket windows are under the bleachers.

The classic TKTS booth is (almost) back with a bold new look: the discounted theater-ticket sales window (and de facto Times Square gathering place) is scheduled to reopen on Oct. 16 at 12:30 p.m. in Duffy Square, the Times Square Alliance announced. The new booth, where Broadway and Seventh Avenue intersect 46th Street, is made of fiberglass and has an amphitheater-style staircase, with 27 slip-resistant steps that will be able to seat more than 500 hot-chocolate-sipping bargain hunters who are after half-price tickets to “Mary Poppins” or “Avenue Q.”

Unbelievably, this thing cost $19M and has taken over two years to build. But hey, soon you'll be able to park your butt in the middle of Times Square.

CORRECTION: According to this Playbill story, the cost for the TKST booth renovation is only $2M, money raised by the Theater Development Fund. The rest of the remake of Father Duffy Square was part of an $18M project taken on by the Times Square Alliance. The square, actually an official NYC park, is now 110% larger.