OAN Staff Blake Wolf
3:12 PM – Friday, December 27, 2024
The enormous annual crystal ball is set to drop on New Year’s in New York City’s Times Square, being unveiled just days before the New Year celebration, with rapper Pitbull in attendance for the test run.
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The last of the crystal triangles for the New Year’s Eve ball, which weighs 11,875 pounds in total, were installed on Friday, marking the first time in ten years in which all 2,688 Waterford crystal triangles were replaced at once.
Rapper Pitbull and inventor Joy Mangano were among those assisting in placing the final pieces on the ball atop One Times Square, which is the skyscraper that the ball will drop from — ushering in the New Year.
Following this iteration of the ball dropping in 2025, it will reportedly be retired and replaced with a new one.
“The new ball will come in 2025, which will be a completely different design, but also is dynamic, but much more digitally interactive,” stated Michael Phillips, the president of the company that owns One Times Square.
“This ball will go onto the lower floors of the building as part of an immersive arts and culture exhibit,” he added.
The New Years Eve ball was first dropped in Times Square 1907 by Jacob Starr, an immigrant metalworker who installed a large ball made out of iron and wood, along with 100 25-watt light bulbs.
Since 1907, the only two years that the city did not drop the ball was in 1942 and 1943, as the city enacted a nightly “dimout” to protect itself from potential attacks during World War II. Rather, the crowds gathered for a moment of silence instead, along with chimes ringing from the base of One Times Square.
During this year’s event, Ryan Seacrest is set to host the “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” program, along with a slate of performances from musicians like Carrie Underwood, Blake Shelton, and Lenny Kravitz, among others.
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