Times Square is a most happening place to look out at in the eve of a New Year. The famous Times Square Ball Drop party is simply incredible.  It attracts numerous amounts of people both from and outside the city. There is a ball at the roof of the Times Square that comes down in the last minute of the December 31^st. It drops down till the count of 60 and at exactly 00:00 hours it is on the ground.

This is more of a tradition than an event in New York. People throng to this place in thousands to ensure they have all the fun watching this event.

Beginning

Adolph Simon Ochs (1858 – 1935) was the owner of The New York Times. He was the first person to organize the Ball Drop event on the last day of 1907. Adolph had opened a new headquarter of the newspaper at One Times Square and he decided to celebrate and advertise the newspaper. It was started more to promote the newspaper at that time than to symbolize the beginning of the New Year, but with the growing popularity, it has been more than 100 years that this event is celebrated as a festival.

Design

Just as other Times Square’s designs, the ball too was designed by ArtKraft Strauss, the great Times Square designer. Since then, the ball design has gone through lots of updates and changes. Originally Strauss, designed it with wood and iron and used light bulbs in hundreds to give the lightning effect. Later on as the technology advanced, the changes in the design were observed and today they use a LED system monitored by computer. After the attacks of September 2011, the Ball had names engraved of people who lost their lives in the tragedy.

There have been many patterns with different themes used from time to time. Like “Let there be light”, “Let there be peace” and so on. In addition to these there were hope themes inscribed in various triangles each year. These were he Hope themes like “Hope for Abundance”, “Hope for Unity”, “Hope for courage”, “Hope  for Wisdom”, “Hope for Healing” and “Hope for Fellowship”.

Different balls

The original ball designed by Strauss was replaced in 1920. It weighed 400 pounds and was made of iron. The second ball was replaced with a third one in 1955, but was more light-weight made of aluminum. With the introduction to technology, the third ball was replaced with the fourth one and more of computerized settings like lightning and ball movement controls were used. The last one was manufacturer in Ireland and transported all the way to the New York where the lightning system was installed.

During Second World War

Each year since 1907, Ball Drop event is celebrated without a miss. However in 1942 and 1943, World War II was going on due to which the event was not organized. It was due to the practice of blackout (minimizing lights at homes and streets) during wartime. After

New trends

From the Times Square Ball Drop event of 1996 onwards, a special guest (celebrity) joins the New Year’s celebration. This celebrity is responsible for initiating the Ball Drop at the last minute of the year. This is done through the Control rooms. These famous people have been involved in this great Ball Drop Event at One Times Square. Like the renowned boxer Muhammad Ali in 2000-01 Colin Powell in 2004-05,the Clinton couple in 2008-09 and Lady Gaga in 2011-12

Overall, we can summarize that the Ball Drop Event of Times Square is a memorable one and celebrating with millions of people along, it is a real fun to watch and worth waiting each year for this event.