10 Times Square Adds 4-Board LED Array At High-Traffic NYC Corner

January 6, 2021 by Dave Haynes

Here’s another example of real estate owners who live the “Location Location Location” mantra turning primo addresses into media sites: this one in NYC Times Square.

There is now a four-screen outdoor LED array cladding the new Yard House restaurant at the corner of 41^st St. and 7^th Ave. 

10 Times Square is owned and managed by L.H. Charney Associates, a privately held real estate development company. DOOH advertising time on the screens will be sold by a third-party media company, Foxpoint Media.

Conventionally, media companies secure rights to put ad faces like digital billboards on buildings, make the technology investment themselves, and pay a revenue share or even a guaranty. In high profile locations like Times Square, we’re seeing more and more property owners make the capital investment themselves and take a larger percentage of the media sales revenue.

The new display system consists of four separate LED screens from SNA Displays: a ticker along 41st Street, a large-format corner display, a ticker down 7th Avenue, and an all-LED sign that projects over the restaurant’s entrance. The content covers all directions of the busy intersection.

All displays employ a pixel pitch of 10 mm with varying resolutions. The main corner display is 24 feet high by 67 feet wide. In total, the four LED screens consist of 1.9 million pixels and cover more than 2,000 square feet of digital signage canvas.

“The new Yard House display technology is a great addition to 10 Times Square,” said Nicole Rotyliano, project manager for SNA Displays. “The screens are oriented so that people coming from all directions can view them from blocks away.”

The biggest challenge with the multi-screen installation, according to Rotyliano, was sequencing the displays in a way that would achieve the design intent, which was to align the existing ticker with the new ticker along 41^st Street and wrap the building with LED displays down 7^th Ave, all while maintaining a strict 1/4″ tolerance to allow for sufficient movement.

“With an ambitious design that incorporated nine individual sign faces all connected at 90-degree angles, the Yard House display presented our team of structural engineers and installers with a unique and exciting challenge,” said Rotyliano. 

SNA Displays did a similar installation at Champs retail store one block away back in 2017.

Sensory Interactive provided design, technology selection, bidding, and project management services. For the most recent project, Sensory Interactive also worked with L.H. Charney to create a strategy for sharing the display’s costs and time between the owner and Yard House. The Sensory Interactive team then represented L.H. Charney in securing a long-term media sales agreement with Foxpoint Media for their share of the display time.

AMA Sign & Electric and Landmark Signs & Electrical Maintenance installed the displays.

I’m going to assume Yard House Times Square (it’s a beer-themed restaurant) gets time on these screens as part of the lease.