About a million people packed Times Square Tuesday night to watch the ball drop on New Year’s Eve as well as performances by Rita Ora and Carrie Underwood, among several others.
The weather was mild before the rain began to fall in New York as crowds poured into the square, with one reveler telling CBS News he had arrived at 6 a.m. to get a good view of the ball drop.
“We just came from Japan all the way here just to see this, just to feel the crowd,” another told the network.
The ball drop, which began 114 years ago, features a 12,000-pound ball made of 2,500 chrystals.
New Year’s Eve in Times Square is one of the most significant challenges for the New York Police Department, which, along with state and federal agencies, is monitoring the area with more than 70,000 cameras, roadblocks, heavy trucks, and drones.
“We have plainclothes teams and K-9 teams, and officers on horsebacks and in helicopters and on boats,” Mayor Eric Adams said ahead of the festivities.
By the time the ball drops in New York, it has already been a new year for hours in areas such as New Zealand, Hong Kong, Australia, and Europe, where fireworks lit up the skies.
The NYPD noted that there was no credible security threat at the site, even as hundreds of officers were gathered to keep an eye on the crowd, while looking out from buildings around the area as well as from atop buildings.
Restaurants, such as Applebee’s, Olive Garden, and Dave and Buster’s, around Times Square, offer a view of the ball drop where revelers don’t have to spend hours jostling amid the crowd in a bathroom-free area. Some are avoiding liquids or using adult diapers to get through the evening. But avoiding that while still seeing the ball drop will cost you; a table at Applebee’s for the night will run you about $850, according to The New York Times.
Evan Lund traveled from Colorado to attend the New Year’s Eve event at Applebee’s in 2022 and 2023. Sharing his experience with Business Insider, he said: “I showed up an hour before the doors opened.” Outside, people wait for hours to hang onto a good spot.
Lund spent $2,500 on three tickets for the event.
“You get to stay inside, nice and warm and all that until you go to the party, so you don’t have to deal with all the other crazy stuff,” he added.
The ball drop has been a tradition since 1907 when the original ball of wood and iron made its way down the pole. Now watched by millions around the world, the tradition is still going strong.
Times Square has been the site of New Year’s celebrations in New York since 1904, the year the Square got its name when The New York Times moved into a building there. The paper’s owner, Adolph Ochs, held a celebration on New Year’s Eve that year to commemorate the opening of the paper’s new headquarters.
Two years into the new tradition, the city banned the fireworks display, prompting the ball drop to take its place.
