to relocate to Longacre Square, the Times cited the fact that the New York City Subway's Times Square station would be directly adjacent to the new building, thus allowing the paper to expand its circulation. Headquarters In mid-1902, the Times hired architect Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz to draw up plans for its skyscraper headquarters at Longacre Square. Site clearing began in December 1902 and was completed within two months. Afterward, workers began constructing the building's concrete, brickwork, and ironwork in mid-1903. By the end of the year, the steel frame was being constructed at a rate of three stories per week. Ochs's 11-year-old daughter Iphigene Bertha Ochs laid the building's cornerstone on January 18, 1904, after the steel frame had been completed. Ochs successfully persuaded the New York City Board of Aldermen to rename the surrounding area after the newspaper, and Longacre Square was renamed Times Square in April 1904. Workers were installing interior finishes by the next month. Construction was temporarily halted that August when seventeen workers' unions went on strike. According to the Times, the building's completion was delayed by 299 days due to various strikes during the project, as well as inclement weather. Prior to the building's completion, in November 1904, the Times used searchlights on the facade to display the results of the 1904 United States presidential election. The Times indicated which candidate won by flashing searchlights on different sides of the building. The New York Times officially moved into the building on January 1, 1905. To help promote the new headquarters, the Times held a New Year's Eve event on December 31, 1904, welcoming the year 1905 with a fireworks display set off from the roof of the building at midnight. The event was a success, attracting 200,000 spectators, and was repeated annually through 1907. Hegeman & Company leased most of the ground level in mid-1905, opening a drug store within that space. The same year, the paper started operating a stereopticon machine on the north side of the building, displaying news bulletins. In addition, the Times experimented with transmitting music and telephone messages to the top of its tower in 1907. In 1908, Ochs replaced the fireworks display with the lowering of a lit ball down the building's flagpole at midnight, patterned off the use of time balls to indicate a certain time of day. By then, the New York City government had banned