The First Ever Times Square Ball Drop Was Held Atop the New York Times Headquarters in 1907, Starting a Cherished Tradition

One Times Square, the billboard-covered building at the intersection of Broadway, Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, is the definitive place where one year passes into the next.

Each year, thousands of people pack around the building to watch the Times Square ball slowly descend a pole marking the New Year—a beloved tradition that began on this day in 1907. Viewers, including almost a billion watching on television, witness a glittering spectacle, sponsored by companies angling to cash in on New Year’s resolutions.

The fanfare in Times Square began 120 years ago. Adolph Simon Ochs, the publisher and owner of the New York Times, wanted to increase publicity for his paper’s new headquarters at One Times Square. So, as 1904 passed into 1905, workers launched a pyrotechnic show from the building.

“From base to dome,” the Times wrote, “the giant structure was alight—a torch to usher in the new born, a funeral pyre for the old which pierced the very heavens.”

The fireworks only lasted two more years. In 1907, Ochs hired sign maker and advertiser Artkraft Strauss to build an iron and wood ball weighing 700 pounds, five feet in diameter and covered in 100 lightbulbs.

The first Times Square ball drop was a rousing, if messy, success. Crowds “began pouring” out of the subway station the night of December 31, the Times wrote, reporting, perhaps with exaggeration, that its roars were heard as far north as Yonkers, more than ten miles up the Hudson River.

“Hurrah for 1908,” the crowd cheered when the ball dropped down the pole at midnight. As the Times went to press later that early morning, “broken horns, demolished and cast-aside rattlers, soiled confetti, forlorn ticklers and dented and deserted derby hats” littered Times Square.

The history of time balls dates to 1818, when future Royal Navy admiral Robert Wauchope developed a visible signal to help ships’ crews reliably tell time while at sea. At first he tried flags, but settled on a ball that descended a pole at a given time of day. In 1833, the Royal Observatory at Greenwich installed a time ball on its roof so ships on the Thames could coordinate their times. Every day since then, the ball raises halfway up the mast at 12:55 p.m., reaches the top at 12:58 p.m. and falls back down exactly at 1:00 p.m., delighting visitors even today.

Ochs may have found inspiration for the Times Tower in a ball atop the Western Union Building in Manhattan’s Financial District that dropped every day at noon, synchronizing with the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. via telegraph to ensure militaristic accuracy.

Since 1907, the ceremony at One Times Square has taken place every year except 1942 and 1943, when wartime dimouts prohibited excessive light and pomp. During those dark midnights, recordings of bells followed a moment of silence.

The Times left its flagship building in 1961 after selling the structure to an advertising firm. Allied Chemical bought it in 1963 and stripped Ochs’ ornate building into a modernist glass skyscraper. Through countless negotiations and purchases since then, the Times Square ball evolved, varying in weight, size and illumination. In the 1980s, it became a red apple with a green stem to support a New York tourism campaign.

After more than a century, the ball is at its most opulent today. According to its official website, the “Big Ball” is covered in 32,256 LEDs. It’s 12 feet in diameter, weighs nearly six tons and sparkles all year long.

Eli Wizevich | | READ MORE

Eli Wizevich is a history correspondent for Smithsonian. He studied history at the University of Chicago and previously wrote for the El Paso Times.