While New Yorkers may avoid Times Square on New Year's Eve, for many Americans, the night is synonymous with Dick Clark, Times Square, and the iconic ball drop. Just ask the masses who gather at the base of One Times Square each year (though not this year), or the over one billion who watch the event’s live broadcast.
The ball drop tradition began in 1907, and from its very first outing until 1996, the design firm Artkraft Strauss constructed the ball and managed its operation. That first year, the New Year’s Eve ball was 700 pounds of iron and wood, studded with 100 lightbulbs.
By the 1980s, the ball’s structure had evolved into a lighter aluminum design, and this photograph — taken during the final minutes of 1980 — showcases its classic sphere covered in white lights.
The final moments of 1980
At its base, employees of Artkraft — timekeeper, sign hangers, and electricians — look up at the ball as it descends the flagpole to the roof of One Times Square. The cables in their hands are cotton-covered steel and allowed them to manually lower the ball as the crowd counted down from Times Square below.
For the following eight years after this photo was taken, the ball was reconstructed into a red-and-green apple, an homage to its Big Apple home.
Today's ball is a whopping 12,000-lbs of LED lights and Waterford Crystal.
As part of our month-long Dear NYC series, we're looking at New York City gems hidden away at the New York Public Library. The NYPL’s four research centers offer the public access to over 55 million items, including rare books, manuscripts, letters, diaries, photographs, prints, maps, ephemera, and more. Integral to these robust collections is the Library’s extensive material related to New York City, and as NY works to come together, cope, heal and recover from the 2020 pandemic, economic uncertainty, and the many issues that divide us, it is important to look at that history and remember: New York is resilient. New York is strong. New York has seen its share of hard times. And, as always, with Patience and Fortitude (the names given to the Library’s beloved lions in 1933 by Mayor LaGuardia for the virtues New Yorkers needed to get through the Great Depression) we will get through it, together.
