Countless people around the globe fix their gaze annually on the dazzling Waterford Crystal New Year’s Eve Ball at Times Square. As the clock strikes eleven-hundred-fifty, millions of people around the world join together to ring in the new year and welcome all the opportunities, challenges, changes, and dreams that it brings.
Interesting Things About the Ball
- It weighs 11,875 pounds, has a diameter of 12 feet, and is a geodesic sphere.
- A total of 2,688 crystal triangles, ranging in size from 4 ¾ inches to 5 ¾ inches per side, adorn the Ball.
- Each crystal triangle showcases a unique glittering pattern. In the Gift of Love design, which consists of 192 crystal triangles depicting intertwined hearts, the emphasis is on the importance of family and friendship. A core wheel with wedge-cut petals of wisdom extending ever onward makes up the Gift of Wisdom design, which has 192 elements. The 192-piece Gift of Happiness pattern has a sunburst of colorful cuts that spread outward, evoking the feeling of joy and warmth that a sunny day may provide. Gift of Goodwill design number 192 features three pineapples, a time-honored emblem of friendliness and hospitality. The Gift of Harmony pattern features 192 interlocking little rosette cuts that create a lovely melody. As a symbol of tranquility, the 192 butterflies that make up the Gift of Serenity design float serenely over a sparkling meadow. A circle of rosettes representing unity and fronds reaching out in a statement of love make up the Gift of love design, which is represented by 192. A faceted starburst that evokes awe is the Gift of Wonder design, and it comprises 192 pieces. As a symbol of the inner qualities of determination, bravery, and spirit needed to overcome hardship, the 192-piece Gift of Fortitude design has diamond cuts flanking a crystal pillar. The remaining 960 triangles that make up the Gift of Imagination are a complex pattern of wedge cuts that serve as mirror images of one another, sparking our imaginations.
Lighting up the aluminum frame of the ball are 2,688 crystal triangles fastened to 672 LED modules. A total of 32,256 light-emitting diodes (LEDs) illuminate the ball. The LED modules have a total of 8,064 red, blue, green, and white LEDs, making up a palette of over 16 million colors and billions of patterns. When turned on, the Ball may create a breathtaking kaleidoscope effect atop One Times Square.
The Ball That Rings in the New Year
Although New Year’s Eve celebrations at Times Square started in1904, the first New Year’s Eve Ball didn’t descend from the top of One Times Square’s flagpole until 1907. To celebrate the arrival of a new year, seven distinct iterations of the Ball have been created.
With a diameter of 5 feet and a weight of 700 pounds, the inaugural New Year’s Eve Ball was constructed from iron and wood and decorated with 100 25-watt light bulbs. Jacob Starr, a young immigrant metalworker, constructed it, and the sign maker Artkraft 8.Strauss, which he formed, was in charge of lowering the Ball throughout the most of the 1900s.
The servers at the famed “lobster palaces” and other high-end restaurants in the hotels near Times Square were given battery-operated top hats with the numeral “1908” made of little light bulbs as an element of the 1907–1908 celebrations. They “flipped their lids” at midnight, and the year on their foreheads lit up, just like the numbers “1908” on the parapet of the Times Tower, to herald the start of the new year.
From 1907 until the wartime “dimout” of lights in New York City in 1942 and 1943, the ceremony of lowering the ball was annually held. There was still a minute of silence before the New Year began, and sound trucks parked at the base of the tower rang the chimes—a throwback to the earlier celebrations at Trinity Church, where people would congregate to “ring out the old, ring in the new.”—so the masses still flocked to Times Square in those years.
A 400-pound Ball constructed completely of wrought iron succeeded the first in 1920. A lightweight aluminum ball weighing just 150 pounds succeeded the heavier iron ball in 1955. From 1981 until 1988, as part of the “I Love New York” advertising campaign, this metal Ball was transformed into an apple by adding green stems and red light bulbs. Prior to this, it stayed unmodified. The classic white ball, now illuminated by white light bulbs and devoid of its green stem, has been illuminating the sky above Times Square once again after a seven-year hiatus. Adding aluminum skin, rhinestones, strobes, and computer controls to the Ball in 1995 was an update, but the final lowering of the aluminum Ball occurred in 1998.
Waterford Crystal and Philips Lighting fully revamped the New Year’s Eve Ball for Times Square 2000, the millennium celebration at the Crossroads of the World. As we looked into the future and into the new millennium, the crystal ball brought us a sense of our heritage by combining cutting-edge lighting technology with more conventional materials.
Waterford Crystal and Philips Lighting collaborated in 2007 to create a breathtaking new LED crystal ball, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Times Square Ball Drop tradition. Modern Philips Luxeon LED lighting technology, which greatly enhanced the Ball’s color possibilities and brightness, supplanted the incandescent and halogen bulbs used a century ago.
Building owners of One Times Square were so impressed with the Centennial Ball’s aesthetics and energy efficiency that they commissioned the construction of the permanent Big Ball, which is twelve feet in diameter and weighs approximately six tons. A total of 32,256 Philips Luxeon LEDs shine light on the 2,688 triangles made of Waterford Crystal. Glistening over Times Square from January through December, this Big Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball is now open to the public all year.
Regarding “Time-Balls”
The original idea of a ball “dropping” to indicate the passing of time predates the actual celebration of New Year’s Eve in Times Square by many centuries. By 1833, the first “time-ball” had been set up atop England’s Royal Observatory in Greenwich. At precisely one o’clock in the afternoon, this ball would drop, enabling the captains of neighboring ships to accurately set their chronometers, an essential navigational tool.
There were perhaps 150 public time-balls set up all across the globe following the triumph at Greenwich, albeit only a handful are operational now. Today, you can still see time-balls being released from flagpoles at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, DC, and in Times Square once a year, signaling the stroke of midnight for more than a billion people around the world, rather than just a handful of ship captains.
History
Unsurprisingly, many of the monumental events that were about to occur in 1904 New York City had their origins in the tumultuous energy and packed streets of Times Square. In 1904, two technologies that would revolutionize the Crossroads of the World were introduced: the first subway line and the inaugural New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square.
The official opening of The New York Times’ new headquarters was marked during this inaugural event. In recognition of his illustrious publication, the district surrounding his new home, Longacre Square, was renamed by the city at the behest of the newspaper’s owner, Adolph Ochs, a German Jewish immigrant. The suggestion for the renaming came from August Belmont, president of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, according to a contemporaneous article in The New York Times. Constructed to support the weight of the state-of-the-art printing equipment used by The Times, the imposing Times Tower stood on a small triangle of land at the corner of 7th Avenue, Broadway, and 42nd Street. It was the second-tallest building in Manhattan at the time, with the highest point measured from its four enormous sub-basements.
On New Year’s Eve, the building hosted a party like no other. When planning this once-in-a-lifetime celebration, Ochs wasted no money. At midnight, the fireworks display capped off an all-day street festival. From as far away as Croton-on-Hudson, thirty miles north along the Hudson River, people could be heard joyfully cheering, rattling, and making noisemakers.
This is how the event was described by the New York Times: “From base to dome the giant structure was alight — a torch to usher in the newborn year…”
Due to the overwhelming popularity of the event, Times Square quickly became “the” location to ring in the New Year in New York City, displacing Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan. The country and the world will soon be captivated by this coalition of political groups.
Ochs remained unfazed even when the city outlawed the fireworks display two years later. At exactly midnight on December 31, 1907, to mark the transition from 1907 to 1908, he planned to have a massive, lit iron and wood ball, weighing seven hundred pounds, lowered from the tower flagpole.
The ball-lowering on that occasion was done by Artkraft Strauss, a sign maker from Times Square, and it remained so for nearly a century afterward. The New York Times moved from Times Tower to 229 West 43rd Street in 1914 because it had outgrown its original location. By that point, spending New Year’s Eve in Times Square had become an indelible part of our culture.
New York City’s “dimout” of lights during World War II forced the temporary retirement of the luminous Ball in 1942 and 1943. A minute of quiet was observed by the still-present Times Square crowds as they welcomed the new year, with chimes emanating from sound trucks stationed at the base of the Times Tower.
The Tower was owned by the New York Times until it was sold to developer Douglas Leigh in 1961. Leigh was also responsible for designing and negotiating the deals for other outstanding billboards in Times Square, such as the renowned Camel billboard, which emitted water-vapor “smoke rings” across the street. To become the Allied Chemical Corporation headquarters, Mr. Leigh dismantled the structure to its steel frame and re-clad it in white marble.
Times Square’s New Year’s Eve celebration has evolved into a genuine spectacle on a global scale. Despite the fact that the Tower is now called One Times Square, hundreds of thousands of people still brave the New York winter weather to wait for hours to see the world-famous Ball-lowering ritual. Every year, the ceremony is viewed by an estimated one billion people across the globe, all because of satellite technology. One way people all over the globe welcome the new year is by watching the Ball descend.