New York Layover Near Times Square
Part of the full New York Layover: Grand Central From JFK
Times Square in New York sits eight blocks west of Rockefeller Center’s open-air observation deck and five minutes from a bus terminal that moves 225,000 people a day, with the free red glass steps above the TKTS booth in between.
Top of the Rock’s 70th floor is open to the air
30 Rockefeller Plaza is the limestone slab at the centre of Rockefeller Center, finished in 1933, and its observation decks occupy floors 67 to 70 at the top of it. A glass lift covers those 70 floors in under a minute. What you get at the end is three levels, of which the highest is open to the sky at 850 feet with no glass between you and the drop.
The reason to come up here rather than to one of the taller decks downtown is what is directly north: Central Park’s full 2.5-mile rectangle, with the Upper West Side and Upper East Side either side of it, and the Empire State Building standing clear in the other direction. It runs 8am to midnight, seven days, and adult tickets sit in the forties depending on which slot you take, so picking a timed entry in advance is what keeps the visit to an hour instead of two.
Twenty-seven red glass steps sit over the TKTS booth
Father Duffy Square is the northern triangle of Times Square, where Broadway and Seventh Avenue cross at 47th Street, and since 2008 it has been a bank of 27 ruby-red glass treads climbing 16 feet off the pavement. The discount theatre ticket booth is built into the space underneath, which is why the steps exist at all.
They hold 1,500 people and cost nothing, and sitting halfway up them is the way to look at Times Square rather than be pushed through it.
Five blocks of Broadway are tables and chairs instead of traffic
The five blocks of Broadway running south from the red steps were closed to traffic in 2009, first as a trial with garden furniture and paint, then permanently in granite and concrete. What was a road is now tables, chairs and planters, with the screens still going overhead.
Standing in the middle of an avenue is the part that catches people out, and it is why Times Square is now somewhere people spend twenty minutes rather than cross. Seating is first come, and the tables at the northern end catch afternoon sun.
The busiest bus terminal in the world is being rebuilt around its own traffic
Eighth Avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets is spanned by a concrete deck on cross-braced steel legs, carrying bus ramps over the street and into the Lincoln Tunnel. That is the Port Authority Bus Terminal, opened in 1950, and by volume of traffic there is no busier one anywhere: roughly 8,000 buses and 225,000 people on an average weekday, more than 65 million a year.
All 2.1 million square feet of it is now being replaced, in phases, without stopping the buses; the first phase broke ground in 2025 on the western side and along the tunnel approach ramps. That means the building you walk into is a construction site with a terminal inside it, and the routes through it move.
The pavements outside are the most heavily walked in the country, and a wheeled bag in that crowd stops the person behind you dead.
The E line runs from 42nd Street to the AirTrain without a change
The E line calls at 42nd Street-Port Authority Bus Terminal and runs from there to Sutphin Boulevard-Archer Avenue in Queens, the AirTrain interchange, with nothing to change onto in between: $3.00 and about 45 minutes. The AirTrain itself is a separate $8.75 charged by the Port Authority, not by the subway, so budget both.
Door to terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), that is a bit over an hour from this block, which is the practical ceiling on how long you can stay. If your gap runs to six hours rather than four, the wider Midtown route from Grand Central is worth crossing town for instead of spending the whole of it in one square.
Frequently asked questions
What should I do during a layover near Times Square and the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City?
Walk eight blocks east to Rockefeller Center and go up Top of the Rock, whose 70th-floor deck is open to the air at 850 feet and looks straight down the length of Central Park, the one view the taller decks further south cannot give you. Back in Times Square, the 27 red glass steps above the TKTS booth in Father Duffy Square are free to sit on and hold 1,500 people at a time. The Port Authority Bus Terminal on Eighth Avenue is worth ten minutes for the scale of it alone. Four hours covers all three; book the deck slot ahead, because the queue rather than the ticket is what eats the time.
Which deck is better from here, Top of the Rock or the Empire State Building?
Top of the Rock, if you want Central Park and the Empire State Building itself in the picture rather than under your feet. It is also eight blocks from Times Square against fourteen to the Empire State Building, and its 70th floor is fully open to the air rather than glassed in. Go the other way if you would rather be in the more famous building than looking at it, in which case the Penn Station end of 34th Street is the better base for the afternoon.
Is Times Square worth being in during the holidays?
Around the edges of it, yes. The Rockefeller Center tree goes up in late November and stays lit into early January, and the rink beneath it is small enough that the queue is often longer than the skate. Times Square itself is a different proposition on 31 December: the pens for the ball drop close off the whole area from the early afternoon, there is no re-entry once you are in one, and no public toilets inside them. On any other winter day the plazas are just busier than usual.
Can you actually wait inside the Port Authority Bus Terminal?
You can, but it is a working terminal in the middle of a rebuild rather than somewhere designed to sit. The main concourses have seating for ticketed passengers, shops and food on the upper levels, and the subway underneath, and the whole 2.1-million-square-foot structure is being replaced in phases around live traffic, so signage and routes change. If you want to sit down with an hour to spare, the red steps five minutes away are more pleasant and cost nothing.