New York City’s Times Square held its first New Year’s Eve celebration in 1904.
The event was organized by Adolph Ochs, publisher of The New York Times, to celebrate the newspaper’s new headquarters at One Times Square. The inaugural celebration featured fireworks launched from the building’s rooftop on December 31, 1904.
The Times later replaced the fireworks with a large illuminated ball, which was lowered for the first time at midnight on December 31, 1907. That ball-drop tradition became more famous than the original celebration and continues annually, except during wartime blackouts in 1942 and 1943.
A common mix-up is to identify 1907 as the first Times Square celebration. 1907 is the year of the first ball drop, while 1904 marks the inaugural New Year’s Eve gathering there.