NEW YORK-
City officials have broken ground for a new booth for TKTS, a local institution that sells half-price, same-day tickets to Broadway and off-Broadway shows.
The discount ticket operation in the heart of the theater district at Broadway and 47th Street has been a mainstay of theater-lovers for more than 30 years, drawing long lines of both tourists and New Yorkers looking for last-minute bargains.
During the renovation, there will be a temporary TKTS booth on West 46th Street outside the New York Marriott Marquis hotel.
The new booth will be built under a big red staircase to nowhere in Times Square. The steps will form an amphitheater 45 feet wide at the top and rising to 16 feet above the sidewalk. City officials hope to complete the project by the end of the year.
"It will be like the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a gathering place, and we need those in New York City," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who joined other elected officials and civic leaders at the groundbreaking for the new TKTS booth.
Construction on the project was supposed to begin in 2000 but was delayed by factors including the 2001 terror attacks and a change in leadership at the Theater Development Fund, which runs the TKTS discount ticket program.
TKTS has been housed in trailers since it opened in 1973.
