New Year's Times Square gets wired

17 Jun 2002

NEW YORK --The ball that drops in New York's Times Square to light up the New Year has finally caught up with the times. This year, the ball atop the One Times Square Building will be computerized and illuminated by lasers. In addition to the nearly 100 million American television viewers, for the first time it will be live on the Internet.

The ball, a tradition since 1906 when the New York Times moved in and renamed the famous intersection, has been virtually unchanged since 1948. The ball used to have rows of ordinary light bulbs and was lowered by hand by six men to signal the magic moment when champagne bottles pop and bands strike up Auld Lang Syne. Beginning at 6 p.m. Sunday, the new ball will pulsate with strobes, a 10,000 watt xenon bulb and 12,000 rhinestones. A minute before midnight Mayor Rudolph Giuliani will focus a laser onto the 6-foot, 500-pound ball, which will flash, emit fog and descend by a mechanical rigging device calibrated to the National Institute of Standards atomic clock in Boulder, Colorado.