The Famous New Year's Times Square Ball

The Times Square Ball is a time ball located in New York City's Times Square. Located on the roof of One Times Square, the ball is a prominent part of a New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square commonly referred to as the ball drop, where the ball descends 141 feet in 60 seconds down a specially designed flagpole, beginning at 11:59:00 p.m. Eastern Time and resting at midnight to signal the start of the new year. In recent years, the festivities have been preceded by live entertainment, including performances by musicians.

The event was first organized by Adolph Ochs, owner of The New York Times newspaper, as a successor to a series of New Year's Eve fireworks displays he held at the building to promote its status as the new headquarters of the Times, while the ball itself was designed by Artkraft Strauss. First held on December 31, 1907, to welcome 1908, the ball drop has been held annually since, except in 1942 and 1943 in observance of wartime blackouts.

The ball's design has also been updated over the years to reflect improvements in lighting technology; the original design was made from wood and iron and lit with 100 incandescent light bulbs, while its current incarnation features a computerized LED lighting system and an outer surface consisting of triangle-shaped crystal panels. Since 2009, the current ball has been displayed atop the building year-round, while the original, smaller version of the current ball that was used in 2008 is on display at Times Square's visitor center.

The event is organized by the Times Square Alliance and Countdown Entertainment, a company led by Jeff Strauss, and is among the most notable New Year's celebrations internationally: it is attended by at least 2 million spectators yearly, and is nationally televised as part of New Year's Eve specials broadcast by a number of networks and cable channels. The prevalence of the Times Square ball drop has inspired similar "drops" at other local New Year's Eve events across the country; while some use balls, some instead drop objects that represent local culture or history.

Festivities

Erik Drost - https://www.flickr.com/photos/edrost88/6279767064/,
CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37798411

Festivities formally begin in the early evening with the raising of the ball at around 6:00 p.m. Party favors are also distributed to attendees, which have historically included large balloons, hats, and other items branded with the event's corporate sponsors. The hours before the drop are preceded by hourly countdowns for the arrival of the new year in other countries, along with live music performances by popular musicians. Some of these performances are organized by, and aired on New Year's Eve television specials which are broadcast from Times Square.

The drop itself occurs at 11:59 p.m.—the last minute of the year, and is ceremonially "activated" by a dignitary or celebrity joined on-stage by the current Mayor of New York City. The conclusion of the drop is followed by fireworks shot from the roof of One Times Square, along with the playing of "Auld Lang Syne" by Guy Lombardo, "Theme from New York, New York" by Frank Sinatra, "America the Beautiful" by Ray Charles, "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong, and "Over the Rainbow".


Since the 1996 New Year's Eve celebration, the current Mayor of New York City has been joined by a special guest, selected yearly to recognize their community involvement or significance, in ceremonially "activating" the ball drop by pressing a button, resembling a smaller version of the ball itself, at exactly one minute to midnight. The button itself does not actually trigger the drop; that is done from a control room, synchronized using a government time signal.

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