Every New Year’s Eve, millions of people gather in Times Square or watch along on television to see the ball drop.
This year, despite the rainy weather in New York which disabled helicam coverage, the celebration was as loud and animated as ever. Exciting performances from artists such as Christina Aguilera and Post Malone hyped the onlookers until it was almost midnight.
At 11:59:00 on December 31, 2018, the iconic ball began its 141 foot descent down the flagpole on top of the One Times Square building, formerly the home of the New York Times newspaper for which the square is named after. Cheers erupted and fireworks exploded across the country when the ball finally came to rest at midnight. Together, the crowd bid goodbye to 2018 and welcomed the first seconds of the new year.
The ball drop tradition began on December 31, 1907 as an upgrade to the annual fireworks celebrating the new headquarters of the New York Times. Adolph Ochs, the owner of the company, organized the event. From the start, the ball drop was popular, with nearly 200,000 people in attendance in 1907. It has since been held every year—sans 1942 and 1943 due to wartime blackouts meant to reduce the vulnerability of target cities such as New York—and has become a staple of American culture.
The original ball was created by Artkraft Strauss, who dominated advertisement design in Times Square throughout the twentieth century. It was a cumbersome object, 700 pounds, and five feet in diameter. It featured a hundred light bulbs and was quite the spectacle.
The ball was replaced in 1920 and again in 1955, each time lighter and brighter. Although the fourth ball celebrated the turn of the millennium with a greater profile—six feet in diameter and weighing 1,070 pounds—it was also fancier, with over six hundred halogen bulbs as well as triangle-shaped crystal panels, strobe lights, and pyramid-shaped spinning mirrors.
In 2008, the modern ball was introduced, complete with computerized lighting patterns and energy-efficient LED lamps. Since 2009, a larger version of the fifth ball has been used. At 12 feet in diameter, it is twice the size of the 2008 ball. The small and large versions are permanently on display in New York, in the Times Square Visitors Center and atop One Times Square, respectively.
I hope that everyone has the chance to visit and experience New Year’s in New York one day. May your 2019 be filled with good fortune and happiness!
Article by MoCo Student staff writer Charese Vo of Richard Montgomery High School