New Year’s Eve in Times Square has become one of the iconic ways to ring in the new year, and the transition from 2016 to 2017 will be no different.
Here are some things to know about the event at the Big Apple:
- The United Nations Secretary General will have the honor of dropping the ball that marks the change of the calendar this year. General Ban Ki-moon will have this responsibility Saturday.
- The ball will be covered in more than 2,600 Waterford crystals.
- The design of the ball is called the Gift of Kindness, representing unity.
- New Year’s Eve in Times Square 2016 is quite different for parents with young children as 48% of these parents do the countdown at 9 p.m., marking down 10 seconds until that time.
- The ball is a geodesic sphere, which is 12 feet in diameter and its weight is approximately 11,875 pounds.
- The ball drop has happened every year since 1907, when the first ball was made of iron and wood, was covered with 100 light bulbs and it weighed 700 pounds.
- The NYPD and FBI will be in full force at the event, keeping an eye out for any potential disturbances that could put a damper on the joyous occasion.
Will you be going to one of our nation’s greatest cities to ring in the New Year, or will you be elsewhere to pop the bubbly?
Have a happy end of the year and an even better 2017.
