UPDATE: It’s 2011! Click HERE to read the story.
NEW YORK—A dress rehearsal of the New Year’s Eve ball was conducted Thursday. The ball was successfully sent up and down the 141-foot flagpole above One Times Square, displaying a variety of dazzling patterns of light.
This year’s New Year’s Eve ball weighs 11,875 pounds—about six tons—and is 12 feet in diameter. It is made of 2,688 triangular Waterford crystals made in four patterns symbolizing love, courage, joy, and light.
The theme of the 2011 ball is “Let There Be Love.”
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Bethany Phillips and Geoffrey Dubit, a couple selected in a Get Married Media contest, will wed on New Year’s Eve as part of the celebration. One of the crystal pieces on the ball has their names engraved on it.
Combinations of red, blue, green, and white lights from 32,256 Philips Luxeon LEDs inside the ball can create “a palette of more than 16 million vibrant colors and billions of patterns producing a spectacular kaleidoscope effect,” according to the Times Square Alliance.
Silvie Casanova, Lighting Communications senior manager of Philips Lighting, said the ball is energy efficient and uses the same amount of energy as two wall ovens.
The ball “cost millions of dollars,” said Jeff Straus, president of Countdown Entertainment.
The tradition of celebrating the New Year in Times Square was started by former New York Times owner Adolph Ochs in 1904, when the New York Times moved its headquarters to then Longacre Square, which was renamed to Times Square because of the paper. The first New Year’s Eve ball was created in 1907 by New York Times electrician Walter Palmer.
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