new year's ball

The New Year's Eve Ball in Times Square. Photo: berk2804/Flickr

The Times Square ball drop on New Year's Eve dates back to December 31, 1907 when a 700-pound wood and iron ball festooned with one hundred 25-watt light bulbs was lowered from a flagpole at One Times Square at the stroke of midnight. That ball was designed by the chief engineer of the New York Times building at the request of the newspaper's publisher, Adolph Ochs. Every year since, with the exception of 1942 and 1943, a lighted ball has dropped in New York City's Times Square on New Year's Eve to mark the end of one year and the beginning of the next.

In 1920, the original Times Square ball was replaced with a wrought iron version that that weighed just 400 pounds. In 1950, the ball was again replaced, this time with a 150-pound aluminum version. This aluminum ball remained unchanged until 1981 when red lights and a green stem were added to tie into the city's new "I Love New York" marketing campaign.

In 1988, the red lights and stem were removed and the ball again sported white lights only. This ball remained in use until 1995, when the Times Square ball got a complete makeover with an aluminum skin, rhinestones and strobe lights -- all operated via computer controls.

In 2000, the Times Square ball was replaced with a six foot diameter geodesic sphere weighing over 1,000 pounds and covered with 504 Waterford crystal triangles.

In 2008, the Times Square ball was replaced with a larger one weighing over 1,200 pounds. The ball was covered in 2,668 Waterford Crystals and powered by over 30,000 LEDS. With computerized controls, the ball could create a palette of more than 16 million different colors and billions of patterns.

The latest version of the Times Square New Year's Eve ball was revealed in 2009. Bigger and better than ever, the ball is a three-frequency icosahedral geodesic sphere weighing over 11,000 pounds. At 12 feet in diameter, the ball is so large that the flagpole atop One Times Square was rebuilt to accommodate it. This ball remains on display mid-way atop the pole year round.