New York City holds the annual New Year's Eve ball drop in the United States' Times Square.
The event takes place at One Times Square, the tall building at the southern end of the square. Spectators gather along Broadway and Seventh Avenue, while millions more watch television and online broadcasts. The ball descends during the final minute of December 31 and reaches the building's roof at midnight Eastern Time.
The first Times Square ball drop occurred in 1907 for the arrival of 1908. The celebration replaced a fireworks display at Trinity Church that had become difficult to continue safely in a crowded city. Times Square itself was previously called Longacre Square and was renamed after The New York Times moved its headquarters there.
The annual event was not held normally during the wartime blackout years of 1942 and 1943. New York City's celebration is sometimes called the “ball drop,” but the descending illuminated object is specifically the Times Square Ball, not a literal clock or globe.