The New York Times begins flashing headlines to pedestrians outside its offices at 1 Times Square, using an electronic news strip that wraps around the fourth floor of the building.
The Motograph News Bulletin, aka “zipper,” was a technological marvel of its day. It extended 380 feet around the Times Tower and displayed five-foot-tall moving letters visible from several blocks away. The first neon sign (see here) in Times Square appeared in 1924. But the zipper, with its streaming headlines, was something new and arresting. A Times column from 2005 said inventor Frank C. Reilly calculated there were 261,925,664 flashes an hour from the zipper’s 14,800 bulbs.
The first use anywhere of the zipper happened to be election day, and the zipper’s first streaming headline announced a new president: HERBERT HOOVER DEFEATS AL SMITH. Historic moments throughout the twentieth century became frozen as zipper headlines in the national consciousness:
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT IS DEAD
TRUMAN ANNOUNCES JAPANESE SURRENDER
PRESIDENT KENNEDY SHOT DEAD IN DALLAS
MAN ON MOON
NIXON RESIGNS
Between monumental news events, the zipper churned out more prosaic headlines—even weather forecasts and sports scores. When the Times moved to West Forty-Third Street, in 1963, Newsday took over running the zipper. It’s since been acquired by Dow Jones, which gave it a complete face-lift.