New Year's Eve New York City Style

Adolph Ochss liked to think big. The son of Russian immigrants, he purchased The New York Times in 1896 when he was just 38. The newspaper was on the verge of bankruptcy, but Ochs was determined to make it successful. In 1904, he moved its headquarters to a brand new 25-story building, the second tallest in the city. It was located in Longacre Square, but Ochs convinced city officials to change the square’s name to Times Square. He chose New Year’s Eve 1904 as the grand opening date for his building.

New Year’s Eve was already a big night in New York City. Beginning in the late 1800s, large crowds of people would “ring in the New Year” outside of the financial district’s Trinity Church. When the church bells chimed at midnight, people cheered, blew horns, and shook noisemakers. Ochs knew it would take something big to draw the crowds away from Trinity Church and into Times Square, so he planned an all-day street festival that included fireworks at midnight. As many as 200,000 people showed up, and they weren’t disappointed. Ochs spared no expense, and Times Square became “the” place to celebrate New Year’s Eve.

Three years later, Ochs needed to find another way to celebrate the arrival of midnight after fireworks were banned in the city. His chief electrician suggested they drop a time ball similar to the one that was attached to a pole on the roof of the city’s Western Union building. Each day at precisely noon, the ball was dropped from the top of the pole. Time balls, originally used by ship captains who needed to know the exact time in order to adjust their nautical instruments, were also used by people to set their watches. The Western Union ball was placed on top of the building in 1877, and it was visible throughout the financial district as well as in the harbor.

Ochs liked the idea, and Russian immigrant Jacob Starr, an electrician and metalworker, was hired to design and build the ball. Starr built a 700-pound ball out of iron and wood and adorned it with 100 25-watt bulbs. The ball, five feet in diameter, was attached to a flagpole and could be lowered by hand with a pulley.

On December 31, 1907, Starr and several other men began lowering the ball at precisely 11:59 p.m. Starr used a stopwatch to ensure that the ball’s trip down the flagpole took exactly one minute. The ball drop was a big success, and it became a New Year’s tradition in Times Square. It has taken place every year except for 1942 and 1943 when it was canceled because of World War II blackouts. Crowds still gathered in Times Square both years and observed the arrival of the new year with a moment of silence followed by the ringing of chimes.

The Times Square ball has been redesigned seven times over the past 100 years. The most unusual redesign took place in 1981 when the ball was made to resemble an apple — complete with red lights and a green stem — as part of the I Love New York tourism marketing campaign. To the relief of many people, the “apple ball” was retired in 1988.

The current ball weighs 12,000 pounds and measures 12 feet in diameter. Computers control its movement and the operation of its 32,256 LED bulbs. The light from these bulbs is reflected by thousands of Waterford crystal panels. The ball is capable of producing millions of different patterns and colors — even more colors than the human eye is capable of seeing.

In addition to the ball drop, the Times Square New Year’s Eve celebration includes concerts, performances, and a live television broadcast that is watched by one billion people throughout the world. Three thousand pounds of confetti are dropped by hand from eight different buildings at precisely 20 seconds before midnight.

The confetti showers down upon the one million people who brave the crowds and the cold temperatures to experience the event firsthand.

Although Adolph Ochs was a big thinker, it is doubtful that even he could have ever imagined just how big the Times Square New Year’s Eve celebration would become. There is nothing quite like it anywhere else in the world.