Energy Efficient Ball Marks Change at Times Square New Years Celebration

Energy Efficient Ball Marks Change at Times Square New Years Celebration

January 2008  - The New Year's countdown 
celebration in New York's Times Square, begins at 6 o'clock with the 
lighting and raising of the New Year's Eve Ball atop One Times Square. A 
new, energy-efficient ball has been created to mark the 100th anniversary 
of the ball lowering celebration. The ball will descend at the stroke of 
midnight and ring in the New Year. 

The new ball is lighted with 9,576 energy-efficient bulbs that use about 
the same amount of electricity as it takes to power a single kitchen oven. 

Philips Lighting, which created the light-emitting diodes, or LED bulbs, 
for the event, says they are more than twice as bright as the lights on 
last year's ball, which were a mix of more than 600 incandescent and 
halogen bulbs. 
The new lights can create more than 16 million colors against 672 
Waterford crystal triangles arrayed in stylized, radiating sunbursts that 
cover the ball's surface. 
"We should all look this spectacular at our 100th birthday party," said 
Jeff Straus, president of Countdown Entertainment, co-producer of New 
Year's Eve in Times Square. "The combination of Waterford Crystal and 
Philips LED technology have created a dazzling new look for this worldwide 
tradition of celebrating the New Year." 
"The New Year's Eve Ball, like Times Square, is an exciting blend of 
technology and tradition," said Tim Tompkins, president of the Times 
Square Alliance, the other event co-producer. 
"The ball this year has been reinvented, just as Times Square is 
constantly reinventing itself," he said. "In its own way it reflects the 
spirit of change and renewal that is at the heart of the New Year's Eve 
celebration for billions of people around the globe." 

Times Square New Year's Eve 2008 features a star-studded lineup of live 
entertainment with the Pontiac Garage, Kid Rock, the Bravery and Velvet 
Revolver playing to a million revelers in Times Square and a billion TV 
viewers around the world. 
Revelers began celebrating New Year's Eve in Times Square as early as 
1904, but it was in 1907 that the New Year's Eve Ball made its maiden 
descent from the flagpole atop One Times Square. 
This original ball, constructed of iron and wood and adorned with 100 
25-watt light bulbs, was five feet in diameter and weighed 700 pounds. In 
1920, a 400 pound ball made entirely of iron replaced the original. 
The ball has been lowered every year since 1907, with the exceptions of 
1942 and 1943, when its use was suspended due to the wartime "dimout" of 
lights in New York City. The crowds who still gathered in Times Square in 
those years greeted the New Year with a moment of silence followed by 
chimes ringing out from One Times Square. 

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