For readers who don't know, I was in Times Square for New Year's Eve this year.
A while back - like, before New Year's 2003 - my mom had considered aloud getting a room in Times Square to see the ball drop. I told her that there
Well, it turns out that if you reserve the room well enough in advance, it's not too difficult, especially if you're willing to part with the primium room rate. Nonetheless, Mom reserved a room for us at the Super 8 in Times Square for New Year's as my birthday gift this year. (My birthday is on the 4th, although the actual celebration of it has been rescheduled since those reservations were made.) So, on Wednesday, Berta, Abby, Mom, Nana, and I set out on the train for New York and our appointment with the ball dropping.
I'm going to skip much of the details of the surrounding New York visit to concentrate mainly on the New Year's Eve experience. If you want to read about our other New York adventures, I'll link an article here eventually. I've noticed that there really isn't much information about Times Square on New Year's Eve other than what the "official" sites post in their skimpy FAQ. For this reason, I think it's imporant to note some of the things we learned from the experience.
Our hotel was on W. 46th St., about two blocks from Times Square. Berta and I started out from there around 5:30 or so, and noticed that 46th had been completely blocked off between the Avenue of the Americas (6th Ave.) and 7th Ave. There were metal barracades with police all over the place. The street itself was vacant, but the ends of entry were closed to pedestrians.
We also noticed a line forming on the eastern sidewalk of 6th Ave, about a block north. So we wandered over there and got in line. I'm pretty stupid about getting in lines when I don't know where they're going. I think I need a sense of purpose regardless of whether I know that purpose. Anyway, the people in front of us seemed pretty confident that the line went somewhere significant. Whether it was to 7th Ave or to destinations unknown, we couldn't say at that point. The people behind us were also of no use, since they seemed to speak only Chinese.
We stayed in the line for quite a while, overhearing rumors of all sorts along the way. We gleaned from eavesdropping that the police were allowing entry at some places in the streets that crossed 7th Ave. People also wandered past our line, shaking their heads and making comments such as, "I don't know why these people are standing in line." This made us a little nervous.
We didn't want to end up in the far back of the event because we were stupid enough to wait in a phantom line, but we didn't want to lose our place in line if it was required. When we got to the intersection with 50th Street, it became apparent that our line wasn't really neccessary. Everyone jogged the last block in a disorderly group to the point of entry.
There was a mob. A real, live mob of people hording around the security checkpoint. This was a sort of revelation. I mean, I understand the security issue, but it hadn't occurred to me that there would be one when we left the hotel. In fact, I had brought my micro-sized Leatherman tool with me deliberately, because you never know when you're going to need a pocket knife, even if you don't have nefarious intentions.
We plowed our way into the mob around the checkpoint, which was allowing two people at a time to trickle into the cross street to 7th Ave. More people piled up behind us. More people piled up behind them. If the people in back saw the people in front move, they would push forward, compressing the mob. Berta and I were in the middle geting squished. There were people behind us as far as I could see (although it was dark), and I had trouble enough turning my head around to do that much.
Berta was pressed up in front of me, squished under the guy in front of her. There was a large black man squished to my left, and a couple of girls squished up behind me. When the crowd moved it was an effort to keep the conjoined bodies on top of the mass of legs aloft. We moved like Jell-o. You could see movements on one side of the mob ripple across the heads of the crowd to the other side, and feel yourself move when someone made room to lift his arm and scratch his nose.
There was a rumor that backpacks wouldn't be allowed in. We saw several people with packs look as if they were turned away. I can't confirm why they were walking away. I know that the police confiscated alcohol, which was not permitted in the penned-off areas. They asked everyone with a bottle if the bottle had booze in it. One of the girls behind me had some Dr. Pepper, which the cop at the gate even sniffed.
When I got to the gate, the cop looked in my bag. We had taken the Mountainsmith lumbar pack, which I was really not too willing to part with. I had already dropped my knife, which turned out to be a mistake, since I was never that thoroughly searched for it. Better to have lost it and gotten in than kept it and be denied entry entirely. But we were still worried about the bag.
At this time, Berta was already past the checkpoint, waiting for me. The cop looked in the bag, had me move my cameras around to see behind him, then he asked his sergeant (he actually said, "Seargeant...", which I thought was cool) if bags of that size were allowed. The sergeant just shrugged and said, "Yeah, sure." Whew.
Past the checkpoint was nice. It was so very wide open between the Avenues, and after the mob it was a relief. We made our way up to 7th Ave., where the people started to get dense again.
Why were they getting dense? Well, you'd think it was because of the crowd waiting in the street to see the ball drop, but it wasn't. It was another security checkpoint! We made the mistake of getting too close to the metal barriers when lining up for inspection, which made it difficult to pass through the entry because of all of the people pushing against us, but we made it eventually.
As I walked through, a new cop looked in my bag, then sent me over to another guy with a metal detector wand. He asked me to open up the bag and take stuff out, which I did. He asked about the GPS/radio I had.
I got a pair of Garmin Rino GPS Radios for our trip. They use satellites to triangulate your location on the planet and display it on an on-screen map with roads and landmarks. One nice feature of this GPS unit is that you can transmit your coordinates to someone else on the channel, and it will display your location on their screen. Useful for finding lost Bertas.
I explained some of this to him, and pointed at Berta, who was now waiting just beyond the inspectors, saying that she had one, too. Surely, I would get us both thrown out if any of us were. Berta's friendly looks seemed enough to placate the officer, and we were sent on our way, through with security for the evening.
We were released into a big people-pen constructed from the now common metal bar barricades. Along the left side ran a car-sized aisle that was generally a no-entry zone. From inside the pen, we had a pretty clear view of Times Square. There was a large building in the acute far-side angle of the Square's bow tie. It housed several enormous TV screens, which were all showing different things.
The highest two were the easiest to see. The bottom of these was the smaller screen, and seemed to do nothing other than advertise TDK through the entire event. The topmost screen had many advertisements for the Discover card, but also provided some trivial entertainment. This included word scrambles, trivia, and rebus-style puzzles. It also showed special-event coverage at certain times inthe evening, such as images of Ben Stein and his contentants trying to capture money in those glass booths that blow the cash around inside. I really don't know what that was all about, but it was there.
More imporantly, this big screen was where the countdown actually took place for the new year and the dropping of the ball. Every hour there was a practice countdown, along with a notice of how many hours were left to go. Since we arrived on the street around 6:30, we didn't notice this until 7, and we still had 5 hours to go.
Speaking of the ball, where was it? It was on top of the tower above the big TV. "Really?" you ask. Yeah, really. "That little red thing that looks like a poor reflection in the building glass?" Yep, that's it. You can kind of see the pole it slides around on. I'm sure that if you're closer it looks bigger, but the one remarkable thing about the ball is that when they showed a picture of it on the jumbotron that appears just below, the picture on the TV is 3 times the diameter of the actual ball.
It's just so disappointingly tiny. It makes me wonder again why it's a ball at all, and not an apple. Why is it so small? Next time, don't use crystal, just use plain old glass and make it bigger.
Visiting Broadway later in the week, I noted that some of the buildings there obstruct the view of the ball entirely. Although there are places on Broadway you can see it, the view is not guaranteed like it is from everywhere on 7th. I didn't get over to Broadway while we were out there (there was no way to get there), but I imagine that there was a crowd on that side, too.
Berta and I settled into our pen, feeling much like herded cattle. People were already busy doing their thing. This area wasn't as crowded as the mobs by the checkpoints, but there were still a lot of people. There was even enough room for people to sit down if they didn't all pack together like they tended to.
After a while of standing around and taking pictures, we heard a commotion behind us. Apparently, the police had opened the rear of our pen and were releasing people into the no-entry zone to move forward to the next pen. Berta asked if we should go, and I said something like, "Why miss an opportunity?" So we went.
It turns out that the choice to leave was a good one. We walked leisurely up the side of the street, passing our old pen and the one in front of it. I think we managed to get a block or two ahead in the end. We finally ended up between 49th and 50th Streets, next to the Lehman Brothers building.
The Lehman Brothers building has to be one of the coolest buildings in the Times Square area. It's difficult to describe the layout of the place. Imagine a three-story building with wide, continuous windows on each floor. Above each of these rows of windows is a continuous TV screen. The building is a block long and the windows and screens wrapped around the corners of it. In the center, rather than rows of windows and screens, it's just a solid TV screen that goes up all three floors. On top of that was a large world map with a strange see-through property. Behind it, the numbers of a digital clock ticked as the minutes passed.
That's the building. And it played continuous "advertisements" for Lehman Brothers throughout the evening. This display was pretty classy, even for an ad.
We figured that Lehman Brothers was some kind of architectural firm, but it turns out that they're global investment bankers. Whatever that is. Clearly their high-visibility street advertising was effective. I imagine that there were very few people standing around in sight of the building that could be influenced by their advertising.
We moved up a couple of times, but that's generally where we were. On the opposite side of the street was a big "750", which I assume was the building number.
Between us and the ball was an unfortunate hotel. I can't recall the name of it, but I'm sure it appears in my pictures. For whatever reason, they saw fit not to adjust their clock to the correct time. So it was 4 minutes fast. The GPS clock, my watch, the Lahman Brothers clock, and the one onbig screen under the ball were all in sync 4 minutes slower than the analog clock on this stupid hotel. You would htink that they would pay more attention to this sort of thing on this particular day, at least.
Berta seemed pretty content standing or sitting listening to her iPod. It seemed like the batteries on everything I had with me decided to die that evening, so there was not music for me. I listened to other peoples' conversations.
There was a group of people to our right that had apparently been travelling around the country for the past couple weeks. They had just recently been in Florida. They had brought their son to Times Square this year, and he seemed to be annoyed by the whole thing. I guess if you're not having fun, you're not having fun, but I don't understand how you can be in a situation like what we were (ie.-standing in Times Square amongst a million people all waiting for a specific event to occur) and not have some awe of it. Maybe that sensation doesn't last 6 hours, but man this kid was obnoxious.
A couple of times during the pre-show the police had passed out anti-terrorism cards. They were just little paper cards with the NYC terrorism hotline phone number on them. (I wish I had kept one, but alas...) The kid's mom had taken a stack of these, tore them in half, and drew playing card faces on the blank side for their entertainment. After the card games had ceased, the kid took to making paper airplanes and hitting people in the back of the head with them. I was waiting for some of the surlier-looking folks to come back and pound him, but that never happened.
At some point, Cyndi Lauper came out an performed. They showed her on the stage. There were a few humorous bits here. First off, we couldn't hear her because there was no sound system as far back as we were. Secondly, we didn't really want to hear her. I mean, come on- Cyndi Lauper? She's like 50 something and looking it. I can't imagine that New York couldn't have gotten someone better. And then there were a few couple more funny Cyndi things...
So I ask Berta, "Man, what dusty rat trap did they drag that old bird out of?" and then I hear the guy in front of me saying about how good she looks for her age and how much she rocks. Weird. I think this is the same guy who had said just before my comments that he could see her onstange from where we were standing, then withdrew his comment saying that no, that was just one of the smaller jumbotron images which was just above the heads of the crowd. Ha!
A group of three girls were making a game out of listing the 50 states and their capitals. I was simply listening in, and some nearby guy started to interject into their fun but hinting at the capitals. This is all good, but then he said that the capital of Delware is Wilmington. And it's so very not. Of course, I tried to point this out. Maybe I should have stayed out of it. Anyway, it was made out by these girls into some kind of vie for superiority. I told them that I live 20 mintes from Wilmington, and I should know. This didn't impress them. Well, I didn't need any of that, so I just backed away from their little game. Besides, I knew I was right. Clearly these girls were better off taking their advice from a guy that would take them drinking later.
There was a group there that was clearly foreign, but not in the usual way. You know how you expect certain denizens of the city to speak different languages? Well this group had an accent, but it wasn't anything standard. Also there was something strangely un-American about their mannerisms. Maybe it was the affinity for soccer. Hmm. Anyway, they were nice to avoid. They played a little game of - who knows what - with an empty water bottle. Kicked it all over the place. I guess it was a good way to keep warm.
Speaking of warm, it wasn't too cold. I think the weather said 29. That's not bad for standing out on the street. I still had to wear my hat and put up my hood to keep warm, but it wasn't bad.
Also, the whole peeing situation wasn't as bad as one might have thought. I think there were a couple people who didn't realize what they were getting into showing up early. You could see them looking around, trying to get the attention of a building security guard (there were a few standing at the building entrances to keep out people who somehow get around the police barricades), wondering if there was a bathroom just inside that they could use for just a minute. These people bugged out early. Berta and I came prepared to hold it in til we got back to the hotel, so we were ok.
I had brought some Capri-Sun in my bag that I wouldn't let Berta have because I was sure she'd need to go right afterward. Maybe not, but better safe. Toward the end of the evening we met a fellow who had been doing this event for many years. His solution to the problem was to bring a Tupperware container. It was one of those tall pitcher ones that's kind of oval-shaped. Anyway, he'd get some people to cover for him, and he'd go in the container, then take it to a sewer grate to pour it out. Some girl nearby had apparently taken advantage of his planning, the discussion of which is how I learned of the nature of the container.
This guy is the guy in the long brown coat in my videos. He's got long hair like one of those stoner metal guys. (Yes, yes, I know...) Berta and I found that he seemed very familiar to us. He reminded me a little of Aaron form college, but I'm sure that's not right. In any case, his mannerisms were very much like someone we both recognize easily. It really bugs me that I can't think of the person this guy is like after so many days to let it stew.
Sometime in the late evening Berta's iPod battery died. It wasn't because it had used all of the juice, but because she hadn't fully charged it. This is my fault because I told her of the dangers of losing the charge in the non-replaceable iPod battery, and suggested that she let the battery completely decharge so to maximize the life of the battery by giving it a good "memory". Anyway, no more tunes for Berta. It was just as well anyway, since there wasn't long left until midnight.
We settled for a while behind a trio of Chinese folks with a wheelchair. This was a good deal since it offered an unobstructed view of the buildings. Unfortunately, someone suggested that we would be able to move up to the next pen, and the surge forward left us closer to the group of plastic-bottle-soccer-playing foreigners than I really liked.
There were a couple of other groups of revelers of interest that were only a little farther away. One group was a bunch of guys with ties, all singing strange campfire songs with an upbeat nature. They were an interesting troupe, occasionally singing the limbo song and actually limboing under a stick. The other group I never got a good look at, but they would every so often start hopping up and down in the crowd and singing that "Ole" song that you hear during soccer matches. Much more odd, if you ask me. Maybe I'm just biased against soccer somehow.
About when the hotel clock said midnight (11:54), somebody threw a ton of metallic sprinkles into the air. We've been tracking these things around for days. I even found some in my notebook computer, which isn't good and has no obvious excuse.
It was also about this time that I noticed my video camera battery was about to die. It had plenty of time still on it, about 59 minutes, but it was reporting impending deadness. I think that the cold was getting to it. I remembered that the instructions had a strangely high low temperature limit, and said that using the battery below that temperature could permanently reduce the battery life. So I pulled the battery off and shoved it in my armpit to get it warm for the final countdown.
The countdown was pretty standard for a crowd of thousands. Of course by this time we were used to doing the countdown from the practice runs over the past several hours.
I don't believe I can describe the scene to you well. The countdown went down. The ball started dropping. Everyone was counting. When the new year rolled around, fireworks sparked out of the building with the ball on it and tons of confetti sprinkled on the first block of revellers, which ended up blowing back in our direction. Balloons were loosed, people screamed, there was kissing, etc.
Fortunately, I do have video.
Within a few minutes, the crowd started to quickly disperse. We had to wrangle ourselves through a few more police barricades before getting out. On the way, some kind of fist-fight broke out between a couple of guys. The police were all over them. I heard somebody in the direction of the scuffle yell that the guy had a gun. I wasn't really worried because the guy was already on the ground with his hands behind his back, but I was still close enough to see that this was the case. I don't think Berta heard this because while I was trying to make a good effort to escape that scene, she kept moving laterally to it. And I don't think it mattered because we still made it out alive. But it was our only potential brush with death the whole evening.
6th Ave. was effectively closed by the sheer number of pedestrians crowding the streets. Many of them were wearing ugly orange top hats, which were given away by Discover, but only to the first block worth of revellers. What a crock! We made it back to the hotel in no time, where we found Nana and Abby asleep, and Mom waiting up to hear how it went.
Now that I've done it, I dont' know that I would do it again. Not unless I could be guaranteed a spot in the first block, which is where all of the events, givaways, and performances take place. And the only way to do that would be to go earlier than we did and stand around for longer, which I'm not really enthusiastic about. I'm still in back pain from the standing and hotel bed and carrying Abby about the city. I might do it again if the circumstances were just right. But it's not something I'm going to plan.
Nonetheless, it was a great experience. Once in a lifetime. One of those things "you just have to do". And now I can cross that one off my list.
