2nd edition

Unit 5 Culture clip

5C Times Square: Worksheet

1 Watch the video report. Are the statements true (T) or false (F)?
1 New York City is the most popular place for foreign tourists in the USA.
2 Nine million more tourists visited the city in 2008 than in 2003.
3 More tourists visit Times Square than anywhere else in New York City.
4 During the 1920s Times Square was a popular place to go and watch a film.
5 In the 1960s Times Square was not a safe place for tourists to visit.
6 Today, people don’t like shopping in Times Square because of the traffic.

2 Watch the report again. What do the following numbers mean?

1 46 million
2 4.8 million
3 9.8 million
4 $200
5 $20 billion
6 36 million

© OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS • PHOTOCOPIABLE Pre-Intermediate DVD clip Worksheet  

 2nd edition
Unit 5 Culture clip

5C Times Square: Answer key

1
1 true
2 false
3 true
4 true
5 true
6 false
2
1 The number of visitors to New York City every year
2 The number of international visitors to New York City in 2003
3 The number of international visitors to New York City in 2008
4 The average amount of money an overseas visitor to New York City spends per day
5 The amount of money overseas visitors spent in New York City 2008
6 The number of visitors to Times Square every year

© OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS • PHOTOCOPIABLE Pre-Intermediate DVD clip Answer key

 2nd edition
Unit 5 Culture clip

5C Times Square: Script

Every year over 46 million visitors come to New York
City. The city is the number one tourist attraction
for international visitors to the United States of
America, and the number of visitors is growing every
year. In 2003 there were 4.8 million international
visitors, and by 2008, there were nearly 9.8 million.
Tourism brings a lot of money into the city. The
average overseas visitor to New York City spends
about $200 a day. That means in 2008 overseas
visitors spent about $20 billion in the city. And the
most popular tourist attraction in New York City
is Times Square, right in the centre of Manhattan
Island. Before 1904, this area of the city was called
Longacre Square. But when the New York Times
newspaper opened its new offices here, the name
changed to Times Square. This area is also known
as the ‘Crossroads of the World’ and New Yorkers
call it the ‘Bowtie’.
In the early 1920s, the area became the
entertainment centre of the city, with many theatres
and cinemas on 42nd Street. A huge street party
was held every year to celebrate New Year. But the
Great Depression at the end of the 1920s damaged
the area. People stopped coming to the theatres
and cinemas, and gradually the area died. By the
1960s and 70s there was a lot of crime and there
weren’t many tourists.
This started to change in the 1980s, and by the
1990s the theatres were open again, and the
visitors started to come back. Today, over 36 million
visitors come to Times Square every year. They come
to the theatres, the cinemas, the shops, and just to
see the ‘Crossroads of the World’.

© OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS • PHOTOCOPIABLE Pre-Intermediate DVD clip Script