I did not know that the tradition of the ball-dropping in New York was that old! They're celebrating that by doing things a little differently this year (and hopefully going forward).
NEW YORK -- The Times Square New Year's Eve ball is celebrating its centennial by going green.
The star of the world-famous holiday extravaganza was revamped this year with 9,576 energy-efficient bulbs that use about the same amount of electricity as 10 toasters.
Philips Lighting, which created the light-emitting diodes, or LED bulbs, specifically for the event, said they are smaller but more than twice as bright as last year's lights, which were a mix of more than 600 incandescent and halogen bulbs. And the new lights can create more than 16 million colours for a kaleidoscope of hues against the 672 Waterford Crystal triangles.
The ball was first dropped for the New Year's Eve celebration in 1907. Made of iron and wood, it weighed more than 300 kg and was lit with 100 25-watt bulbs.
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This year, the motif is "Let There Be Light" and features a stylized, radiating sunburst on each of the crystal triangles.
The new design and technology "will make the ball glow like nothing else," said Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance, a business group in charge of the event.
Mrs THIT wonders how much energy the previous ball would eat up. I...have no idea, but I suspect it was significantly more than ten toasters.
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