Times Square Ball Totally Explained

Everything about Times Square Ball totally explained

Each year on New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square in Manhattan, New York City, a time ball made of crystal and electric lights is raised to the top of a pole on the One Times Square building and then lowered to mark the coming of the New Year. The Ball descends 77 feet (23 meters) over the course of a minute, coming to a rest at the bottom of its pole at 12:00am. Toshiba's Times Square billboard directly below the Ball counts down to midnight as well.
Every year up to one million people gather in Times Square to watch the Ball drop, and an estimated 1 billion watch video of the event, 100 million of them in the United States.

History

The descent of a time ball each New Year’s Eve is a ritual derived from a common visual synchronization procedure once used primarily for navigation and astronomy. This practice evolved long before the age of electronic communications, but after mechanical timekeeping had reached a high degree of accuracy. In 1829 the first time ball was installed in England for visually synchronizing the chronometers used in navigation.

1904 – The New York Times opens its new headquarters on Longacre Square (the city's second tallest building), and persuades the city to rename the triangular "square" for the newspaper. Owner Adolph Ochs initiates a massive celebration in the square for New Year's, which is so popular (200,000 came) it permanently displaces the celebration from Trinity Church. There is no ball, but there are fireworks.

1907 – The New Year’s Eve Ball first descended from a flagpole at One Times Square, constructed with iron and wood materials with 100 25-watt bulbs weighing 700 pounds (318 kg) and measuring 5 feet (1.5 m) in diameter. At first, it dropped 1 second after midnight.

1914 – The Times relocates to 229 W. 43rd St., but the celebration continues., hosted for 35 years by Dick Clark and recently joined by Ryan Seacrest after Clark suffered a stroke in 2004, as well as a West Coast host and performer, which changes each year and is usually female. NBC also has coverage of the events under the name New Year's Eve with Carson Daly, hosted in recent years by Carson Daly; previously a special edition of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (and before that, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson) would air in this slot, but Leno has since ceded hosting duties to Daly, who hosts more conventional coverage. FOX also has its own coverage of the New Year's Eve event, which started in 2004-05 in an attempt to capitalize on Clark's stroke. Ryan Seacrest hosted the first year; in 2005-06, Regis Philbin (who had filled in for Clark on ABC the year prior) took over as Seacrest went to ABC. In 2007-08 the coverage was hosted by Cat Deeley and Spike Feresten.
For many years CBS was known for its coverage of the ball drop featuring Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians band (he had done so on CBS Radio Network since 1928 and on TV since 1956), live from The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and featuring the now famous rendition of Auld Lang Syne. Lombardo died in November 1977; the Royal Canadians did the show with Victor Lombardo substituting for his late older brother for 1977-78 but would disband after that. The broadcasts continued under the name Happy New Year, America beginning in 1978-79, still live from the Waldorf-Astoria (with taped segments added from Billy Bob's in Texas and Walt Disney World), with various guest hosts (among them Andy Williams, Brent Musburger, Gladys Knight, Christie Brinkley, Natalie Cole, Kermit the Frog and Lily Tomlin in character as "Ernestine the Telephone Lady"). The last broadcast was in 1995-96 and featured Montel Williams as host. CBS no longer covers the ball drop and instead opts for reruns of Late Show with David Letterman. Some CBS affiliates show local ball drops instead.

Other ball drops

The Times Square ball drop isn't the only New Year's Eve ball drop in the United States. The claim to the second-largest ball drop in the country is held by the 97 Rock Ball Drop of Buffalo, New York. This ball drop began in 1988 and has since become a Buffalo tradition. An estimated 40,000 spectators watch the ball drop live from the Electric Building on Roosevelt Square in Buffalo, and the event has been telecast annually in synchronized split screen with New Year's Rockin' Eve on WKBW-TV since its inception. The Peach Drop of Atlanta, Georgia boasts a similarly sized celebration.
In addition, other smaller towns have conducted drops, or raisings, of objects on New Year's Eve. The act is particularly popular in Pennsylvania.

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