Times Square New Year's Eve organizers held a ball drop "dress rehearsal" on Sunday to ensure that everything goes smoothly during tonight's big crowded rain-soaked police barricade party. The star of the festivities, the nearly six-ton Waterford crystal ball that will slide down a 130-foot tall pole to ring in 2019, was given a test run for reporters yesterday on New Year's Eve Eve. Spoiler alert, again: Gravity still works!
"It takes two minutes for the ball to go up and about 60 seconds for the ball to come down," Jeffrey Straus, president of Countdown Entertainment, which, along with the Times Square Alliance and sponsor Planet Fitness, puts on the festivities. The ball, which is 12 feet in diameter and has 2,688 crystals, has LED lights that create millions of color and patterns.
When asked why they bother to have this practice run, Straus exclaimed, "Every show on Broadway rehearses, we spend the whole year rehearsing, this is our big night."
He also mentioned how in the 1950s, the ball used to be lowered by a four men pulling ropes, and supervisors with a stopwatch. "Even then, the ball got stuck half way," he said, adding, "The first year I did this, in 1995... the ball was three seconds late! You've got to rehearse to make you've got it right on time... The thing about this is, no matter if the ball's late, early, whatever, the new year happens and we're all kissing each other!"
The ball is atop One Times Square, also known as that building with the Walgreens under it. On the fifth floor, a few dozen people were busy making sure that revelers who brave the crowds (and weather) will have balloons to wave. Danny Magowan and his company Balloon Affairs have been supplying balloons for New Year's Eve in Times Square for 25 years after his friend in the confetti business asked him if he'd like to help out.
Workers make sure thousands of balloons are ready for New Year's Eve in Times Square (Jen Chung / Gothamist)
The noisy room—the loud hums from the balloon inflating machines, plus squeaks of latex and occasional POPS—was bustling on Sunday as workers tied mylar streamers to the four-foot tall balloons. "There are 17 miles of streamers," Magowan pointed out. The balloons are then stored in mobile storage units around Times Square, to be distributed to revelers in the hours before the countdown.
"I guess you could call me the Chief Latex Dispersal Engineer," Magowan joked. But he'll be busy at midnight with another material: "I'll be on top of one of the buildings, helping with the confetti dispersal! ... It's the most exciting party in the world, it's the biggest party in the world, and that I get to be a part of it... it's just a thrill."
