Omicron may have forced the drastic downscaling of Times Square’s traditionally jam-packed New Year's Eve Celebration—among other restrictions, only 15,000 masked and vaxxed revelers will be allowed into the party pens—but the world famous Waterford Crystal ball has to get fully dressed for the festivities nonetheless. This year that means replacing 192 triangles on the Ball's facade with a new pattern that evokes "the “Gift of Wisdom," said Jeffrey Strauss, the co-organizer of Times Square New Year's Eve.
"This is the fun part," Strauss told Gothamist on Monday from the roof of One Times Square. "The Gift of Wisdom is represented by a wheel, surrounded by petals of knowledge growing ever forward. It's a beautiful design and joins the Gift of Imagination, the Gift of Harmony, The Gift of Fellowship and many others on the ball to create a patchwork of hopes and dreams."
Of course, the spectacle is staged as much for the in-person party as it is for the estimated one billion viewers around the world who watch the ball drop on television and online. And to keep them all entertained in the hours leading up to midnight, there will be a full slate of celebrities and performers on hand, including LL Cool J, Chlöe, KT Tunstall, Karol G, and Journey, who will presumably be belting out "Don’t Stop Believin'," a pandemic-era NYE anthem if there ever was one.
The New York City Football Club will also be in attendance, fresh off their MLS Cup Championship, the only NYC pro team to win it all in the past ten years. The USO Show Troupe, Liza Koshy and her “fitacular” dance show, and the Sino-American Friendship Association are also scheduled to appear.
The first Times Square Ball — made of iron, wood, and studded with 100 25-watt bulbs — was lowered in 1907, and since then it has only missed two countdowns, both during the "dimouts" of World War II. The current Ball, which is actually a geodesic sphere, is twelve feet in diameter and weighs 11,875 pounds. It will be illuminated in flashy fashion by 32,256 colored LEDs as it makes its way down the pole during the last minute of 2021.
Strauss said that "it feels great" to welcome the public back to Times Square for New Year's Eve. "It's great that we can have these moments, whether it's a birthday, an anniversary, New Year's Eve, Christmas, it's important for all of us to be able to celebrate, and we're going to do that in a responsible and safe manner."
However, epidemiologist Denis Nash has expressed safety concerns about the event, even a scaled-back version.
Nash wrote on Twitter that "as an infectious disease epidemiologist and New Yorker" he "does not want to see our great city unnecessarily add to pandemic spread here and the places that we are connected to," saying "epidemiologic evidence outweighs" any reasoning there could be to hold the event as omicron continues to spread.
"Masks are an effective strategy to mitigate the risk of acquiring/transmitting omicron," he wrote. "However, when assessing the risk of a mass gathering like this, it is important to factor in the activities leading up to and after the gathering, in addition to the gathering itself. These include travel to NYC if you are coming from out of town. Going to NYC restaurants and bars [when] there is no masking (eating/drinking). With omicron, vaccines will not reduce spread in these settings... We don’t want to do something that could seed many new outbreaks of omicron when people return to their homes in the New Year."
Meanwhile, large-scale indoor events that were also planned for New Year's Eve, like The Strokes at Barclays Center and Phish at Madison Square Garden, have been canceled. Or, in the case of Phish, postponed until April (depending on how the Knicks do):
