West 45 St, Times Square

45th starts off its run through Times Square at 8th Avenue to the West and right away it's pretty Broadway heavy. The corner at 45th and 8th houses the Golden Theatre on the south side and Frankie and Johnny's on the north side. Frankie and Johnnie's used to be a really popular speakeasy kind of restaurant but now it's just popular with the tourist set. The restaurant next door, Sam's, is now more of a local Broadway performer hangout than Frankie and Johnnies. Next door to that is the Imperial Theatre which is beautiful and has seen the debuts of power houses like Les Miserables. This kicks a pretty impressive row of theatres that include the Jacobs, Schoenfeld, Music Box and Booth. These are some of the Broadway big guns and have been for a very long time. The Booth theatre was a big Shakespeare theatre named for Edwin Booth, a famous actor whose brother killed President Lincoln. There's one chain hotel at the end of the block, but other than that, this block is gloriously theatre dominated. Yeah, it has a ton of tourists like the rest of the neighborhood. But, it's so exciting to watch everyone pile in for theatre at 7:45. It keeps an old timey feel to this block and it's lovely that art is so alive right here.
The block at Broadway starts the big lights, tourists, ads situation that we all have come to know about Times Square. The swatch building right on the corner at Broadway is particularly known for its ads: they're covering the building. The oldest theatre on Broadway, the Lyceum is in the midst of all of this chaos and that's kind of sad because it's so beautiful. There used to be speakeasies and local restaurants all over this block but now it's taken over by tourist shops and chain restaurants which is really a shame. It's kind of a mess right here, and exhausting to navigate. I wouldn't recommend even walking through this block let alone living on it. It's utter mayhem right here 24 hours a day. But, the block with the theatres is so lovely to hang out on (and even see a show (but not a musical). As far as Times Square streets go, 45th isn't half bad because the block at 8th saves it. But, it's just too crowded, loud and dirty on the whole. And, because it's such a tourist trap, there's no local feel or neighborhood hang.