On August 14, 1945, news broke that Japan had surrendered, ending World War II. Crowds poured into the streets of New York City, and in the middle of that celebration, in Times Square, a sailor grabbed a stranger, a dental assistant named Greta Zimmer Friedman, and kissed her.
LIFE magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt happened to be a few feet away. He had no time to ask names or get permission, he simply raised his camera and took the shot. That photograph, known as "V-J Day in Times Square," became one of the most reproduced images in American history.
The kiss happened in Times Square, Manhattan, generally placed near the intersection close to 7th Avenue and 44th Street, in the dense crowd that had gathered to celebrate the war's end. The precise spot has been debated by historians for decades, since Eisenstaedt himself didn't record it at the time, he was photographing a moment, not documenting a location.
Neither the sailor nor the woman were identified for years afterward. George Mendonsa was later identified as the sailor, and Greta Zimmer Friedman as the woman in white. Neither had met before the photo, and neither stayed in touch afterward.
Today, that stretch of Times Square looks almost nothing like it did in 1945. The New York Marriott Marquis, built in 1985, now towers over the area where older theaters, including the Morosco Theatre, once stood before being demolished in the early 1980s, a demolition that was controversial enough to change how New York City protects historic theaters today.
Walk that same sidewalk now and you'll find souvenir shops, chain restaurants, and the same neon-lit chaos Times Square is known for, no plaque marks the exact spot, and most people walking past have no idea they're standing where one of the most famous photographs in American history was taken.
Times Square's own history is a layered one: a 2017 car crash near this same corner, the 1928 opening of what's now the H&M Tower, a subway stop that opened in 1918, and theaters that rose and fell across a century, all within a few hundred feet of each other. Most of it is invisible unless you know to look for it.
That's the exact gap Backyard is built to close. The app narrates real, fact-checked stories like this one automatically, triggered by your actual location as you walk, so a corner like this one tells you its whole layered history instead of just looking like another crowded Times Square sidewalk.
See how Backyard works, or download it free on the App Store.