New Year's Eve in New York City
Everyone knows about New Year’s Even in Times Square, where hundreds of thousands pack in together and watch the excitement of a 1000-lb ball of crystal drops to mark the beginning of a new year. With Karen in town, we had to experience it, of course. Toby was feeling ill, so it was just Karen and I trudging our way southward to mid-town, bundled up to prepare for the forecasted rain/sleet, riding the packed subway cars amidst other revelers.
We exited the subway at 42nd Street/Times Square Station at about 8pm. We were shunted south along 6th Avenue along with dozens of other tourists. It was like the Halloween parade again, with what seemed like every police officer of the NYPD on the job. We walked past 43rd and 44th and 45th streets, blocked off to pedestrians. Cops were only allowing people with hotel reservations in along these streets. Onwards we trudged with the growing crowd of confused people. We could hear the stage shows along the side streets, but every block meant the show was that much further away. At one point, we stopped a cop and Karen asked, “How is all this working?” After all, we were wondering if maybe they’d closed off Times Square for crowd-control reasons. The cop replied, “The operation is running perfectly smoothly, thanks.” We had a good laugh. He then explained that we just needed to keep walking south (away from Times Square, might I remind you) until officers were allowing people through.
Unfortunately, it seemed as though every block we overheard cops saying the entry-point for the spectacle would be TWO more blocks further away! Not a convergent system! Nevertheless, we’d come this far, we figured we might as well continue.
Finally, at 49th Street, there was an opening! We joined in the herd, crushed in the throng of tourists and revelers hoping to catch a glimpse of the famous festivities. And in an amazing moment of herd-ness, we realized that we were heading into a “pen” (official word) at 49th Street and 7th Avenue! We would be penned in with several hundred people, seven blocks away from the dropping of the ball. It turned out that there were 2 pens per block. I’m not sure what was happening at Times Square itself, as we were way too far away to see. We couldn’t even hear the stage bands by that point. We could see the gaudily lit up ball of crystal, though from our vantage point, it looked more like a ridiculous disco effect with flashing lights of varying colours!
I guess in the marketing scheme of things, we were close enough to Times Square to warrant giant billboards on our block. For the building to our left carried a block-long lit screen displaying a world map, the current date and the current time. As we pushed our way to near the front of our pen, we marveled at the buildings, the crowds of people and the billboards which were still legible from 7 blocks away. We chatted with people around us, watched the giant, yet tiny, crystal ball dazedly, talked about paint drying… ant it was still only 9pm! At this point, we began to worry about the dearth of port-a-potties that had been promised, the growing chill, and the occasional fog which would envelop the upper part of the building behind which the crystal ball was hung. Wouldn’t it have been ironic to have had the entire area fogged in right around midnight, I thought.
At this point, we were bored silly, I was already chilled, and we were tired of standing next to a stinky sewer grate. Karen and I decided it would be more fun to be at home than spend another 3 hrs of our lives standing in our pen! So got ourselves “unpenned”, and walking several blocks and getting (mis-)directed by several officers, we found ourselves at an open subway station. (Many in the Times Square area had been closed until midnight.)
We stopped by the local liquor store, found a cheap bottle of champagne, and came home, much to Toby’s surprise! He’d made chocolate chip cake though, we were happy to scarf down. Then, we cleared off a table, took out a board game, and had a grand old time hanging out! We even listened to a bit of the festivities from a live internet feed. Midnight came with the sounds of fireworks and glasses of yummy champagne! We were warm, happy, and very glad we’d not spent the past 3 hrs in a pen watching nothing happen.
I think the best part was our good deed just after midnight. Karen and I took down a piece of still-warm cake to the night-guard down the street! These guards always look bored, and it seemed sad she’d be celebrating New Year’s alone in this tiny fishbowl. She was very surprised and quite taken with our gesture. And it made me feel like 2006 was to be a good year.
We exited the subway at 42nd Street/Times Square Station at about 8pm. We were shunted south along 6th Avenue along with dozens of other tourists. It was like the Halloween parade again, with what seemed like every police officer of the NYPD on the job. We walked past 43rd and 44th and 45th streets, blocked off to pedestrians. Cops were only allowing people with hotel reservations in along these streets. Onwards we trudged with the growing crowd of confused people. We could hear the stage shows along the side streets, but every block meant the show was that much further away. At one point, we stopped a cop and Karen asked, “How is all this working?” After all, we were wondering if maybe they’d closed off Times Square for crowd-control reasons. The cop replied, “The operation is running perfectly smoothly, thanks.” We had a good laugh. He then explained that we just needed to keep walking south (away from Times Square, might I remind you) until officers were allowing people through.
Unfortunately, it seemed as though every block we overheard cops saying the entry-point for the spectacle would be TWO more blocks further away! Not a convergent system! Nevertheless, we’d come this far, we figured we might as well continue.
Finally, at 49th Street, there was an opening! We joined in the herd, crushed in the throng of tourists and revelers hoping to catch a glimpse of the famous festivities. And in an amazing moment of herd-ness, we realized that we were heading into a “pen” (official word) at 49th Street and 7th Avenue! We would be penned in with several hundred people, seven blocks away from the dropping of the ball. It turned out that there were 2 pens per block. I’m not sure what was happening at Times Square itself, as we were way too far away to see. We couldn’t even hear the stage bands by that point. We could see the gaudily lit up ball of crystal, though from our vantage point, it looked more like a ridiculous disco effect with flashing lights of varying colours!
I guess in the marketing scheme of things, we were close enough to Times Square to warrant giant billboards on our block. For the building to our left carried a block-long lit screen displaying a world map, the current date and the current time. As we pushed our way to near the front of our pen, we marveled at the buildings, the crowds of people and the billboards which were still legible from 7 blocks away. We chatted with people around us, watched the giant, yet tiny, crystal ball dazedly, talked about paint drying… ant it was still only 9pm! At this point, we began to worry about the dearth of port-a-potties that had been promised, the growing chill, and the occasional fog which would envelop the upper part of the building behind which the crystal ball was hung. Wouldn’t it have been ironic to have had the entire area fogged in right around midnight, I thought.
At this point, we were bored silly, I was already chilled, and we were tired of standing next to a stinky sewer grate. Karen and I decided it would be more fun to be at home than spend another 3 hrs of our lives standing in our pen! So got ourselves “unpenned”, and walking several blocks and getting (mis-)directed by several officers, we found ourselves at an open subway station. (Many in the Times Square area had been closed until midnight.)
We stopped by the local liquor store, found a cheap bottle of champagne, and came home, much to Toby’s surprise! He’d made chocolate chip cake though, we were happy to scarf down. Then, we cleared off a table, took out a board game, and had a grand old time hanging out! We even listened to a bit of the festivities from a live internet feed. Midnight came with the sounds of fireworks and glasses of yummy champagne! We were warm, happy, and very glad we’d not spent the past 3 hrs in a pen watching nothing happen.
I think the best part was our good deed just after midnight. Karen and I took down a piece of still-warm cake to the night-guard down the street! These guards always look bored, and it seemed sad she’d be celebrating New Year’s alone in this tiny fishbowl. She was very surprised and quite taken with our gesture. And it made me feel like 2006 was to be a good year.
posted by blumaroo at
2:09 PM
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