New Year's Eve in Times Square: Why the Ball Drops

Besides all of the technology of this year's brand new ball, what makes this ball so historic?  At some point on January 1st, after this bright and colorful orb makes its descent, it will be raised again to remain atop One Times Square throughout the entire year.  You will be able to see the New Year's Eve ball in March, July, and October.

 

A brief history: 

The first New Year's Eve celebration was the 1904-1905 bash which marked a rebirth of what had been known as Longacre Square, a place of horse-related business during the day and a notorious red-light district at night.  Change to the square had begun in 1895 with Oscar Hammerstein's Olympia, the first of many theaters built in what would become the theater district, but the year 1904 saw the opening of the neighborhood's first luxury hotel (the Hotel Astor) as well as the opening of the brand new subway and the headquarters of the New York Times.  1904 was also the year Longacre Square was rechristened Times Square--through some kind of deal quietly worked out between the director of the new subway and Adolph Ochs, the publisher of the paper.

The first ball drop took place in the 1907-1908 festivities, which still included fireworks as well as local waiters who wore battery-powered top hats with 1908 spelled out in miniature bulbs.  With the wartime exception of 1942 and 1943, the ball has dropped every New Year's Eve since then.  The ball drop comes out of an old time-keeping tradition first performed in Greenwich, England above the English Royal Observatory in 1833.  Chronometers could be set on passing ships every afternoon at 1 pm.  Other time-balls would begin to drop from tall buildings throughout the world.

When it was built, by the way, One Times Square was the second tallest building in the world after the Park Row Building across from City Hall.  Today captains on ships along the Hudson or East River wouldn't be able to see the ball, blocked as it is by the much taller buildings that run river to river in midtown. 

Visit the Times Square Alliance for more history, details about the technology and construction of this year's ball, and wonderful photographs of all that it can do.