The Times Square Ball takes 60 seconds to descend during the New Year's Eve countdown.
The ball begins its descent at 11:59 p.m. on December 31 and reaches the bottom of its pole at midnight. The one-minute movement gives the crowd a visible countdown rather than relying only on spoken numbers or a clock display.
The descent is part of the ceremony at One Times Square in Manhattan. The ball is raised before the event and lowered along a pole mounted on the building. Its illuminated surface makes the movement visible across the square and in broadcast coverage.
The duration is sometimes confused with the ball's height, the number of seconds in the final countdown, or the length of television coverage. Those are separate measurements. The stable fact asked here is the descent time: exactly one minute.