Crews Install Waterford Crystals On Times Square New Year's Eve Ball
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Crews are at One Times Square Wednesday installing Waterford Crystals on the New Year's Eve ball.
Once completed, the 12-foot, nearly 12,000-pound masterpiece will be covered with more than 2,600 Waterford Crystals of various patterns, cuts and sizes.
The theme this year is "The Gift of Serenity" that is displayed by the butterfly-like design cut out in the Waterford Crystal triangles, WCBS 880's Mike Smeltz reported.
"When that ball drops, there is 32,000 Phillips LED lights behind each crystal panel generating over 7.5 billion light combinations that will be and can be seen from space," Tom Brennan from Waterford Crystal said.
Tim Tompkins of the Times Square Alliance said even with the cold, thousands are expected to fill the Crossroads of the World on New Year's Eve.
"Of course, it is going to be a little bit chilly on New Year's Eve so having some serenity in the face in the force of nature is something that's valuable too," he told 1010 WINS' Juliet Papa.
These are the crystals on the #BALLDROP2018 #Waterford #TimesSquare #1010WINS pic.twitter.com/rfkV4iV4IU
— Juliet Papa (@winsjuliet) December 27, 2017
The ball has come a long way since the first drop in Times Square. In 1907, the 700-pound ball was made of iron, wood and covered with 100 light bulbs.
Throughout the years, it was upgraded to another iron ball in 1920, an aluminum ball in 1955, a computerized aluminum and rhinestone ball in 1995, a crystal ball in 1999, a LED ball to celebrate the centennial in 2007 — and finally, was replaced with the current ball.