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 down a specially designed flagpole, beginning at 11:59:00 p.m. ET, and resting at midnight to signal the start of the new year. In recent years, the ball drop has been preceded by live entertainment, including performances by musicians. Over 1,000,000 people from around the world attend.
Times Square Ball Drop
New Year's Eve event
December 31 – January 1
6:00 p.m. EST
12:30 a.m. EST
(1973-present)
Annually
1907
2024
Times Square Alliance
Countdown Entertainment
The event was first organized by Adolph Ochs, owner of The New York Times, 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 been updated four times to reflect improvements in lighting technology; the original ball was 5 feet (1.5 m) in diameter, constructed from wood and iron, and illuminated with 100 incandescent light bulbs. By contrast, the current ball is 12 feet (3.7 m) in diameter, and uses over 32,000 LED lamps. Since 1999–2000, the ball has featured an outer surface consisting of triangular panels manufactured by Waterford Crystal, which contain inscriptions representing a yearly theme.
The event is organized by the Times Square Alliance and Countdown Entertainment, a company led by Jeff Strauss.[1] Since 2009, the ball has been displayed atop One Times Square nearly year-round, while the original, smaller version of the current ball that was used in 2008 has been on display inside the Times Square visitor's center. 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.
History[edit]
Early celebrations, first and second balls (1904–1955)[edit]
The first New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square was held on December 31, 1904; The New York Times' owner, Adolph Ochs, decided to celebrate the opening of the newspaper's new headquarters, One Times Square, with a New Year's fireworks show on the southern roof of the building to welcome 1905.[64] Close to 200,000 people attended the event, displacing traditional celebrations that had normally been held at Trinity Church.[65][66] However, following several years of fireworks shows, Ochs wanted a bigger spectacle at the building to draw more attention to the area. The newspaper's chief electrician, Walter F. Palmer, suggested using a time ball, after seeing one used on the Western Union Telegraph Building, near Trinity Church.[67]
Ochs hired sign designer Artkraft Strauss to construct a ball for the celebration; it was built from iron and wood, illuminated by a hundred incandescent light bulbs, weighed 700 pounds (320 kg), and measured 5 feet (1.5 m) in diameter. The ball was hoisted on the building's 70 foot flagpole with rope by a team of six men. The ball would begin to drop at 10 seconds before midnight. Once it hit the roof, the ball completed a circuit that lit 5-foot-tall signs on the sides of the building to signal the new year, and triggered a fireworks show.[68] The first ever "ball drop" was held on December 31, 1907, welcoming the year 1908.[65]
In 1913, only eight years after it moved to One Times Square, the Times moved its corporate headquarters to 229 West 43rd Street. The Times still maintained ownership of the tower, however, and Strauss continued to organize future editions of the drop.[69]
The original ball was replaced with a new design after the 1919–20 event; it shared the physical dimensions with the first ball, but was now constructed solely from iron—decreasing its weight to 400 pounds (180 kg).[70] The ball drop was placed on hiatus for New Year's Eve 1942–43 and 1943–44 due to wartime lighting restrictions during World War II.[70] Instead, a moment of silence was observed one minute before midnight in Times Square, followed by the sound of church bells being played from sound trucks.[70]
The third ball (1955–1998)[edit]
The second ball was last used for the 1954-55 event in favor of a third design; which was now 6 feet in diameter, constructed from aluminum, and weighed 150 pounds (68 kg).[70]
It was not until 1979 that it became an established practice for the crowd in Times Square to count down the final seconds during the event—a practice that only became common in general on New Year's Eve television specials in the 1960s.[71]
For the 1981–82 event, the ball was modified to make it resemble an apple with red bulbs and a green "stem", alluding to New York's nickname, "the Big Apple" for the “I Love New York” marketing campaign.[65] For the 1987–88 event, organizers acknowledged the addition of a leap second earlier that day (leap seconds are appended at midnight UTC, which is five hours before midnight in New York) by extending the drop to 61 seconds, and including a special one-second light show at 12:00:01 a.m..[72] The original white bulbs returned to the ball for the 1988–89 event, but were replaced by red, white, and blue bulbs for the 1990-91 event to salute the troops of Operation Desert Shield.[65]
The third ball was updated again for the 1995–96 event, adding a computerized lighting system with 180 halogen bulbs and 144 strobe lights, and over 12,000 rhinestones.[70][73] Lighting designer Barry Arnold explained that "something had to be done to make this event more spectacular as we approach the millennium."[73]
The drop itself became computerized through the use of an electric winch synchronized with the National Institute of Standards and Technology's time signal; the first drop with the new system was not without issues, however, as a glitch caused the ball to pause for a short moment halfway through its descent.[74] The following year, John Trowbridge was hired as the drop's new technical director; in 2021, Jeff Strauss told The Wall Street Journal that the drop has never had any technical issues since.[9]
After its 44th use in 1999, the third ball was retired and placed on display at the Atlanta headquarters of Jamestown Group, owners of One Times Square.[65]
