Good Question: What's The Origin Of The Times Square New Year's Eve Ball?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- More than half of us watch the New Year's Eve festivities in New York City's Times Square on TV.
And the main attraction is the dropping of the nearly 12,000-pound sparkly sphere, which is 12 feet in diameter and has 32,000 LED lights.
There have been seven different versions of the ball. The first one, in 1907, was iron and wood and had just 100 lights. Over time, it has been variations of iron and aluminum.
And to welcome the new millennium, the crystal ball was created. It is now covered in 2,688 pieces of Waterford Crystal. All of the lights were replaced with LEDs in 2007.
The ball has dropped every New Year's Eve in Times Square with the exception of 1942 and 1943, when lights had to be dimmed in New York City during World War II.
