On the evening of December 31st, as in many years before, millions of people around the world will pause to watch as a 12-foot-tall, 11,875-pound crystal ball slowly descends over a New York City flagpole to announce the launch of a new year.

The Times Square Ball Drop has been a New Year’s Eve staple since 1907, when the original ball made of wood and iron made its maiden voyage. It remains a beloved tradition over a century and half a dozen ball redesigns later.

The famous ball was skipped every year except for 1942 and 1943 due to lighting restrictions during World War II (which did not prevent crowds from gathering in Times Square).

New Year’s Eve celebrations now include a long list of musical performances and corporate sponsorships, and more spectators are returning to the streets in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis The pandemic forced it 2020 online.

There are even inspired spin-offs in the US, with different cities dropping everything from one giant pine cone and an oversized cucumber to a huge moon pie and High heel riding drag queen.

But the Big Apple’s large crystal ball has managed to remain at the center of the action. Here you can find out how the spectacle came about and how it has developed over the years.

Times Square has long been synonymous with New Year’s Eve

New Yorkers have been celebrating New Year’s Eve in Times Square – the busy intersection of Seventh Avenue, 42nd Street and Broadway in midtown Manhattan – since it was named in 1904.

This year, the New York Times moved its headquarters to the new Times Building (now known as One Times Square). The newspaper’s owner, Adolph Ochs, successfully lobbied the city to rename the area formerly known as Longacre Square.

According to legend – also known as the Times Square District Management Association – “Ochs”no expense spared“Hosting a New Year’s Eve celebration to commemorate the opening of the headquarters with an all-day street party and an extravagant fireworks display.

The party was a huge success and cemented Times Square’s status as a place to ring in the New Year. But two years later, the city banned fireworks.

Undeterred, Ochs looked for a way to excel for the 1907-1908 event – and found it.

The ball throwing is based on a maritime tradition

Ochs asked that Just“The chief electrician, Walter Palmer, came up with a New Year’s Eve spectacle that didn’t involve letting ash-filled fireworks remnants rain down on the revelers.

According to a 1965 article in Newsday (Nassau edition)Palmer was inspired by the clock on the Western Union Telegraph Company building downtown, which dropped an iron ball from its roof every day at noon for decades.

This harkens back to a long maritime tradition in which ports drop a ball at a specific time each day, allowing ship captains to precisely adjust their navigation instruments. Famous examples include the Royal Observatory at Greenwich in England and the US Naval Observatory in Washington, DC, both of which still release balls daily (at 1:00 p.m. and 12:00 p.m., respectively).

Palmer devised an even larger production, eventually covering a 700-pound ball of iron and wood with 100 light bulbs to lower a pole that stood 50 feet above the 400-foot tower.

The ball was built by a young immigrant metalworker named Jacob Starr, whose company, Artkraft Strauss, spent most of the 20th century lowering the ball – a process done by hand using more than half a dozen men and a length out Rope.

The New York Times details his debut on December 31, 1907:

“Ten minutes before midnight the pipes of every boiler in Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and the surrounding waters began to scream. Tens of thousands stood and watched the electric ball. And then – it fell. The great shout that rang out drowned out the whistles for a minute. The vocal power of the greeters surpassed even the horns, cowbells and rattles. Above everything else there was the wild human clamor, out of which the words “Hurray for 1908” could be vaguely formed.”

Interestingly, the final 10-second countdown only became part of the tradition many decades later. As NPR reportedIt wasn’t until the 1960s that some television announcers began a countdown, and the Times Square crowd didn’t join them until 1979.

The ceremony – and the ball itself – have evolved over the years

A lot has changed since that first ball drop, including the ball itself.

The original ball was replaced in 1940 with a 400 pound iron ball. In 1955, it was upgraded to a 150-pound aluminum sphere with 180 light bulbs. Red bulbs and a green stem transformed the ball into an apple for the “I Love New York” campaign for seven years in the 1980s.

The ball received an aluminum shell, rhinestones, flash units and computer controls in the late 1990s, as well as today’s signature crystal triangles (courtesy of Waterford crystal) at the turn of the millennium.

Until the mid-1990s, the ball was lowered by hand; now the time has come electronically timed with an atomic clock in Colorado (but the mayor of New York City and other special guests still have the honor of pressing the ceremonial button).

“In my first year we decided to go with computer control, electronic winch and tie-in to the atomic clock in Colorado, and unfortunately the ball was about three seconds late…the first failure in 1996,” said Jeff Strauss, president of Countdown entertainment Member station WBGO in 2017. “Since then, I have to say, we’ve been doing really well.”

To mark its 100th anniversary in 2007, the ball’s incandescent bulbs were replaced with LED lighting, allowing for greater brightness and color possibilities. The following year, One Times Square unveiled its permanent “Big Ball” to the public, making it a year-round venue.

The owners and residents of the 26-story building have also changed since the tradition began.

The New York Times moved nearby in 1914 and sold its former headquarters to a developer in 1961. The Allied Chemical Company purchased and renovated the building shortly thereafter, and the office building changed hands several times over the following decades.

One Times Square is currently owned by a real estate investment and management company Jamestown LPwhich announced in 2022 a $500 million plan to modernize the building into a “21st century visitor center for New York City,” including a museum and observation deck.

construction is expected to end in 2025 – one more reason to look forward to the new year.