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. The event was first held on December 31, 1907, to welcome 1908, and has been held annually since. The ball’s design has been updated over the years to reflect improvements in lighting technology. The current incarnation features a computerized LED lighting system and an outer surface consisting of triangular crystal panels.
About Times Square Ball in brief
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. The event was first held on December 31, 1907, to welcome 1908, and has been held annually since. The ball’s design has been updated over the years to reflect improvements in lighting technology. The current incarnation features a computerized LED lighting system and an outer surface consisting of triangular crystal panels. Since 2009, the current ball has been displayed atop One Timessquare year-round, while the original, smaller version of theCurrent ball that was used in 2008 has been on display inside the Times Square visitor’s center. Festivities formally begin in the early evening, with the raising of the ball at 6: 00 p.m. ET where a guest turns on a switch to light the ball along with the playing of Fanfare for the Common Man by The New York Philharmonic. At that time, five hourly countdowns to the top of each hour are held until midnight, along with live music performances by popular musicians. The climax of the festivities is the drop itself, which occurs at 11: 59: 00 m. m. ET, and resting at midnight to signal the start of the new year. Since the 2005 edition of the event, the drop has been preceded by the first verse of John Lennon’s song, “Auld Lang Syne” The event is attended by at least 1 million spectators yearly, and is nationally televised as part of New Year’s Eve specials broadcast by a number of networks and cable channels.
It is among the most notable New year’s celebrations internationally: it is watched by a large number of people around the world and is broadcast on television specials broadcasting from Times Square in the United States and Europe. Since 1996, it is ceremoniallyactivated by a special guest, selected yearly to recognize their community involvement, by pressing a button on a smaller model of the Ball. The button itself does not actually start the drop; that task is actually done from a control room, or a government control room. The conclusion of the drop is followed by various dignaries and celebrities: These guests have included various dignities and celebrities, and have included John Lennon, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, and Louis Armstrong. In recent years, the festivities have been precededby live entertainment, including performances by musicians. For 2018–19, the NYPD announced its intent to use a camera-equipped quadcopter to augment the over 1,200 fixed cameras monitoring Times Square,. but it was left grounded due to the rainy weather. The ball drop was first organized by Adolph Ochs, owner of the New York Times newspaper, as a successor to a series of fireworks displays he held at the building to promote its status as the new headquarters of the Times. It was initially constructed from wood and iron, and lit with 100 incandescent light bulbs. In 1942 and 1943 in observance of wartime blackouts.
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This page is based on the article Times Square Ball published in Wikipedia (as of Jan. 03, 2021) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
