The New Year’s Ball is the latest concession to energy-efficient lighting and will be “green” but fantastically multi-colored this year. Revamped with 9,576 environmentally-adaptive bulbs, the electricity used will be equal to that of ten toasters, but twice as bright and smaller than the lights used on last year’s ball. Philips Lighting designed the diodes especially for this year’s event; the New Year’s Ball celebrates its 100th anniversary with tomorrow’s descent.
New Year’s in Times Square was first ushered-in with a dropping ball in 1907. Made of iron and wood, the ball weighed 700 pounds and was illuminated with 100 25-watt incandescent bulbs. Five other versions of the ball appeared over the course of the last century, including 1999′s crystal-laced ball that welcomed in the new millennium (of course, unaware of the horrors that would occur here in less than two years…but that’s the way the ball bounces).
At One Times Square, the new ball was successfully tested today as it was moved up and down its 77-foot flagpole rigging atop the building. Everything appears to be ready for another ball and for another year. Nonetheless, like all native New Yorkers (at least, those in their right minds), I won’t be anywhere near Times Square tomorrow night. My wife and I will be observing the happy chaos from the safety of our secret location, somewhere in Brooklyn.
Many suns and moons ago, when my mother used to wake me up at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, I used to gaze at this descending ball on the television screen through a mist of sleep. Being an imaginative child, my first thought was that the Earth was being invaded…perhaps it was, and continues to be, and not just on New Year’s Eve.
Source:
nbc5.com/news/14949019/detail.html
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December 31st, 2007 - 7:30 am
What a cool ball for this year. I did Times Square once in high school, and it was massively fabulous. That being said, once was enough and retreating to a safe location is indeed the way to do it. I’ll be watching it on TV from Texas, but the New York New Year’s is still the only one I celebrate.
That’s too cute about being a little kid and thinking we were being invaded. Yet, as you say…perhaps kids know stuff we forget as adults.
December 31st, 2007 - 11:53 am
While it may have been “cute,” it also may explain my grown-up paranoia. Thanks, Suzann.
January 1st, 2008 - 12:26 am
I don’t know… I think paranoia is really double-speak for ‘they really are out there, but we’re all supposed to act normal.’
January 1st, 2008 - 12:44 am
Maybe we’re dazzlingly intoxicated here, but we DID NOT see any colors on the ball…only some great glitters and sparkles. However, the new ball does bring color to the Egg Cream.
As far as your assessment of paranoia is concerned, like Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Newman, “I used to be worried, now I’m just amused.” I love it!!!