Which New York City landmark is the site of the famous New Year’s Eve ball drop?

New York City’s famous New Year’s Eve ball drop takes place in Times Square.

The first Times Square ball drop was held on December 31, 1907, to welcome 1908. Newspaper publisher Adolph Ochs organized the celebration for the headquarters of The New York Times, which had moved to the area then known as Longacre Square. The illuminated ball was designed by electrician Walter F. Palmer and built by the Artkraft Strauss company.

The ball is lowered from a flagpole atop One Times Square shortly before midnight. The modern ball is a geodesic sphere covered with Waterford crystal triangles and illuminated by LEDs. The event has been canceled only a small number of times, including during wartime blackouts in 1942 and 1943.

People sometimes call the tradition the “New York ball drop,” but the landmark’s official name is Times Square, not “Broadway Square.”