Times Square Alliance president Tim Tompkins, vice president Ken Gordon, and event management firm Steffan Group planned the party, which started with cocktails in a 3,400-square-foot tent on a block-long stretch of Broadway sidewalk in front of the hotel—a clear structure, so guests could see the glittering lights of Times Square. Silver metallic cutouts in the shape of the number 100 sat atop silver pedestals flanking the tent’s entrance.

After cocktails, guests moved inside to the Marquis’ sixth-floor Broadway ballroom, decorated in bright pink and blue decor with flashing lights on the tabletops, an homage to the visual bustle outside. Slide projections showed historic Times Square images. The hotel catered a three-course dinner with dishes inspired by Times Square’s culinary history: butter-poached lobster on wild mushroom risotto (lobster eateries like Rector’s peppered the square’s past), filet of beef tenderloin (a play on the district’s reputation for vice and lewdness—get it? Tenderloin?), a sphere of white chocolate mousse symbolic of the ball that drops on New Year’s Eve, and a slice of New York cheesecake (invented, according to popular myth, in 1929 by the Turf restaurant on 49th Street and Broadway).

A centennial video presentation featuring memories and anecdotes from the honorees—who included Shubert Organization chairman Gerald Schoenfeld, New York Times Company chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr., and Gretchen Dykstra, the first president of the Times Square B.I.D.—preceded their formal recognition. Tom Viola and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS produced a musical revue, “Times Square keeps a’changin,” to close the evening.

—Alesandra Dubin