The paper published six days a week with morning and evening editions and charged one penny for the day's news. A larger, weekly version was printed to be distributed outside the city.

Times Square would not be renamed after the paper for another 53 years, so the first offices were downtown at 113 Nassau Street near City Hall Park, then 138 Nassau Street, then 41 Park Row. By 1904, the paper would move to the Times Tower in what was then known as Longacre Square before it was renamed Times Square in honor of the paper. After establishing the Times Square New Year's Eve ball drop from atop their building, the paper would again outgrow the location, expanding and moving some offices westward until completely relocating to their current building on Eighth Avenue.

For a bit of local news, that first edition of the New-York Daily Times contained a front page story on the ongoing construction of the fountain in Washington Square Park, which would be completed one year later in 1852.