Where to stay near Times Square: the 3 areas to know in 2026

Our tips for booking the right place

• Sixteen subway lines under the pavement, and 57 million riders a year: This is the fact that justifies the price of these nights. Times Square-42 St station serves 16 lines, A, C, E, B, D, F, M, N, Q, R, W, S, 1, 2, 3 and 7, and it is the busiest on the network: 57,743,486 riders in 2024. In other words, no address in New York puts as many directions within one flight of stairs. For a stay that wants the Bronx one day, Coney Island the next and Brooklyn in the evening, the calculation is made there, not on the view from the room.
• Our reviews contradict each other, and both should be read before booking: Anne writes « Times Square never stops coming to life! » and describes a neighbourhood that « swarms without rest with tourists and New Yorkers alike »; julies_journeys, who stayed « right next to » it, recommends the steps in the middle « when it is already dark outside ». Cloclo, who gives 1 out of 5, sees « an intersection with no particular charm, with lights everywhere without any harmony » and concludes: « it is borderline oppressive ». All three are right, which is why this page separates the block of screens from the rest: 232 metres to the south or 780 to the west, the same neighbourhood is lived differently. A light sleeper books to the south or the west, not on Broadway.
• The screens are watched at night, and it is a review that says so: « Position yourself on the steps in the center of Times Square to let yourself be immersed by the giant advertisements on the bright screens all around you. You have to see it when it is already dark outside, of course », writes julies_journeys. Those steps are in the middle of the intersection, so less than five hundred metres from every address on this page: no area deprives you of them. What changes is the opposite: sleeping on the block of screens means having them lit behind the curtains all night.
• Where this page stops, and where the New York guide begins: This page covers a radius of 800 metres: that is the size of the choice between « on the square or next to it ». As soon as the question becomes « which neighbourhood of New York should I sleep in », it has nothing left to say, and the New York guide answers, with its six neighbourhoods from the Upper East Side to Brooklyn. The Hell's Kitchen card leads there. Bill puts it his own way: Times Square, « at the intersection of Broadway and 7th Avenue, between 42nd and 43rd Street », is « without a doubt the most famous address in Manhattan »; that does not make it the only one to sleep in.
• What being near the stations changes for a short stay: Penn Station is 646 metres from the intersection, Grand Central 895, Herald Square 687. For three nights with an arrival by train and a departure towards Boston or Washington, the southern area saves a subway ride at each end, suitcases included. The other landmarks are at roughly the same distance from every area: Rockefeller Center 651 metres, the Empire State Building 888, Columbus Circle and the south entrance of Central Park 1,361.