NY2K

New Year’s Eve in Times Square AD 31 December 1999

Please note that this page has 20 photos in it and will take more than 5 minutes to download so please be patient. There will be no thumbnails on this page. So while you are waiting for the all the pictures to come out, why not take your time to read what I have written below.

This was my best New Year’s Eve ever.

The New Year’s Eve celebration in New York (GMT -5) started at 6am. It was to be ongoing for the next 24 hours. When I finally got to Times Square, it was already 1pm. Although this was earlier than 2:30pm that I initially planned to be there, the place was already packed with people. Times Square is officially from 40^th Street to 53^rd Street. When I got there, it was already closed from 42^nd Street to 50^th Street. Anyone who wants to go to Times Square has to go further up north past 50^th Street. “The Ball” is at the corner of 42^nd Street and Broadway so no one would be below 42^nd Street. By about 9:30pm, the whole Times Square was close to public all the way to 59^th Street. This is at the beginning of Central Park and is more than 1km from “The Ball”. Estimated amount of people present was about 2 – 2.5 million people with about less than 10% were New Yorkers.

Every hour by the hour, there would be a performance of some sort. Mainly, a lot of puppets. Puppets of people, ships, insects, fish, horses, giant baby and many others. Besides puppets, there were many cultural dances. All performances were followed by the countdown for each time zone. Before that, the giant TV monitor will display all the countries celebrating the millennium for that hour. For certain important hours like GMT+1 (Paris, Berlin, Rome) and GMT 0 (London), there would be confetti thrown from the high buildings. After which, the TV will show the celebration on a particular city live. The cycle then repeats with a performance before the next countdown. So the celebration was actually non-stop for about 24 hours. This makes standing there at the same spot for 11 hours seem shorter and less agonizing than most people would imagine. I had a great time.

The atmosphere, all the cheering and clapping and all the things people around you would say, these are the things you can never get watching it at home on TV. And of course the crazy little things that people would do. For instant, I witnessed a woman in her 20’s urinating in front of everyone because she didn’t want to move away from her spot. Once you get out, there is no way for you to get back into the same spot. There were also a few guys climbing on top of each other to get a better view. Once in a while, you get a guy who lies on his back supported by nothing but the hands of the people below and they would “pass” him around to where ever the crowd takes him. I even got to see Christina Aguilera on a stage and walking pass. Cool.