Times Square New Year's Eve Ball Drop

What it is

The Times Square ball drop began in 1907, when New York Times owner Adolph Ochs staged it to show off his new headquarters at One Times Square. The first ball was iron and wood, weighed 700 pounds and carried 100 light bulbs. Today's ball is a 12 foot geodesic sphere weighing 11,875 pounds and covered with 2,688 Waterford Crystal triangles, and it descends from the same building every December 31. Standing in the square is free, and it is also the hardest free thing in New York to do well.

What to expect

Police pens open in the early afternoon and fill from the top down. Once you are in a pen you cannot leave and return, there are no public toilets inside the pens, no bags are allowed and no alcohol. People arrive before 3 pm to stand for nine hours in the cold. It is a genuine bucket list night and an objectively miserable way to spend an evening, and both of those things are true at once.

Getting there

Arrive by subway in the early afternoon at 42nd Street-Times Square on the 1, 2, 3, 7, N, Q, R, W or S, or at 50th Street on the 1 and C and E, and follow police direction to the entry points, which move each year. From the evening onwards many station exits at Times Square are closed and streets shut across a wide perimeter.

What to see and book nearby

More New York events

Explore the calendar

Full calendar