For many years staying up to watch the ball drop in Times Square, New York on New Year’s Eve has been a ritual in our house, except when we have been at a celebration.

But mostly sitting up watching by myself has been the norm.  My husband can’t stay awake that late so usually I am alone to watch the New Year arrive.

Watching the ball drop was another one of those traditions that many people practice.  But what’s with the ball drop anyway?

Celebrating New Year’s Eve in Times Square was started as early as 1904, but it was in 1907 that the New Year’s Eve Ball made its  descent from the flagpole atop One Times Square. Seven versions of the Ball have been designed to signal the New Year since then.

The first New Year’s Eve Ball, made of iron and wood and adorned with one hundred 25-watt light bulbs, was 5 feet in diameter and weighed 700 pounds.

The ball has been lowered every year since 1907, with the exceptions of 1942 and 1943, when the ceremony was suspended due to wartime.  The crowds still gathered in Times Square in those years and greeted the New Year with a minute of silence followed by the ringing of chimes from sound trucks parked at the base of the tower a reminder of the earlier celebrations at Trinity Church, where crowds would gather to “ring out the old, ring in the new.”

In 1920, a 400-pound ball made entirely of wrought iron replaced the original and in 1955, the iron ball was replaced with an aluminum ball weighing 150 pounds. This aluminum ball remained unchanged until the 1980s, when red light bulbs and the addition of a green stem converted the ball into an apple for the “I Love New York” marketing campaign from 1981 until 1988.

For Times Square 2000, the millennium celebration, the New Year’s Eve ball was completely redesigned by Waterford Crystal and Philips Lighting. The crystal Ball combined the latest in lighting technology with the most traditional of materials. In 2007, for the 100th anniversary of the Times Square Ball Drop tradition, Waterford Crystal and Philips Lighting crafted a spectacular new LED crystal ball.

The beauty and energy efficiency of the Centennial Ball inspired the building owners of One Times Square to build the permanent Big Ball weighing nearly six tons and twelve feet in diameter. The 2,688 Waterford Crystal triangles are illuminated by 32,256 Philips LEDs. This Big Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball is now a year-round attraction in full public view January through December.

The drop itself is a signal of the passing of time into a new year. This year I read of several “drops’ all over the country. Not just balls but other things.

For instance in West Fairview, Pennsylvania, a 7-foot tall nail constructed of wood signifying a local mill that once employed many was dropped. In Las Cruces, New Mexico a big chili was dropped and in Atlanta, a peach, a musicale note in Nashville, Tenn, a large pine cone in Flagstaff, Arizona, and oversized spur red cowboy boot in Prescott, Arizona, a 600-pound walleye was dropped in Port Clinton, Ohio, an 80 pound wedge of cheese in Plymouth, Wisconsin and in Escanaba, in the upper peninsula, a replica of a pasty and giant wrench in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania and a huge pickle in Dillsburg.

Now this begs the question. What would we drop in Edwardsburg?

First, we would have to find a tall enough structure to drop from.  Maybe the Edwardsburg  water tower or the radio antenna at the fire station or maybe the new band directors stand in the parking lot of the high school.

Next what would we drop? How about an Eddie or a fish? Maybe a motor home, or a pile of lumber. What do you think would be an appropriate representation of our community?

 

Jo-Ann Boepple works at the Edwardsburg Area History Museum.