There’s so many NYC traditions you may look forward to every year, but truly know little about. Whether it’s the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree to the Coney Island Polar Bear Plunge, we’re going to take a closer look at what may be the most famous of them all: the Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball Drop.
But first, let’s catch up on where the tradition of a ball drop actually came from and how NYC eventually became synonymous with it each new year.
The English were some of the first to use ball “dropping” as a symbol of time passing. In 1833, a “time-ball” was installed on top of England’s Royal Observatory at Greenwich. The ball would aid ship captains in setting their chronometers by dropping at one 1pm every day. After the Greenwich time-ball, 150 balls were said to have been created worldwide. Yet as of today, very few have survived and are operational.
Now, enough backstory—let’s get into the fun facts you probably didn’t know about the Times Square NYE ball as we await this year’s confetti to fall at midnight.
1. The first ball drop atop One Times Square was in 1907.
2. The ball weighs 11,875 pounds.
3. It’s made of 2,688 crystals triangles.
4. Not all crystal triangles are the same size. They vary between lengths of 4 ¾ inches to 5 ¾ inches per side.
5. Each crystal triangle belongs to one of 9 design patterns: Gift of Love, Gift of Wisdom, Gift of Happiness, Gift of Goodwill, Gift of Harmony, Gift of Serenity, Gift of Wonder, Gift of Fortitude, and Gift of Imagination.
6. There have been seven versions of the ball to date.
7. The first NYE ball was made of wood. It weighed 700 pounds and had 100 light bulbs.
8. The current NYE ball can display 16 million colors and billions of patterns.
9. 32,256 LED lights cover the ball.
10. The shape of the ball is known as a geodesic sphere.