Times Square

Times Square New Year's Eve ball makes its final descent. What will become of it?

NBC Universal, Inc.

The new year marks a new look for the world's most famous New Year's Eve ball.

The timeless Times Square treasure made its final descent Wednesday, coming down from its perch on a pole atop 1 Times Square after delighting millions in person and watching on TV for almost 20 years. But it won't be going away entirely.

The ball drop is a tradition that has stood the test of time. The first one dates back to 1907 after the New York Times sought a way to bring in the new year without using fireworks.

Young immigrant metal worker Jacob Starr built the very first new year’s eve ball. It weighed some 700 pounds and was adorned with 100 25-watt light bulbs. Since then, there have been different iterations of lights, through bulbs or LED.

In 1920, the original was swapped out for a new 400-pound ball made solely of wrought iron. It was dropped every year for three and a half decades, excluding 1942 and 1943, when there was a wartime dim-out.

A 150-pound ball made completely of aluminum made its debut 35 years later and remained unchanged until 1981, when red light bulbs and the addition of a green stem transformed the ball — appropriately — into a big apple.

In the mid to late '90’s, the ball moved from a being lowered by hand to an electronic timing system. It also got another makeover including aluminum skin, rhinestones strobes and computer controls. 

Entering into the new millennium in 2000, the New Year's ball underwent another transformation, adding its now-signature crystal triangles that would be illuminated with thousands of colorful led lights for its 100th anniversary in 2007.

That inspired the construction of the nearly six-ton, energy efficient ball we know today that has become a daily attraction year-round and will serve as an inspiration for the next ball that will sit atop 1 Times Square.

So what's to come of the ball that helped usher in nearly two decades' worth of new years? It will be joining others that came before it in a new immersive museum that is set to open at the same Times Square location in September, according to Michael Phillips, the president of Jamestown LP, the real estate investment and management group that has owned the building since 1997.

As for what will replace the newly retired ball, that is up in the air for now. It's not yet known when the the new ball will make its debut or what it will look like, but one thing is known: The new iteration won't have the familiar triangular shapes the old one featured.

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