A Brief History of the
New Year’s Eve Ball Drop

Last night, millions around the country (and more than a billion around the world) rang in the new year by counting down as a giant, lighted ball descended a pole atop Times Square. Unless you’re especially versed in the history of time-telling inventions — or you’re a 19^th century seafarer — you probably don’t know what dropping a huge ball has to do with the passage of time. So let’s look at the invention history of the Times Square Ball, and how it came to be the ubiquitous symbol of denoting a new year.

The Times Square Ball most recently enjoyed patent protection as of 2004 when inventor Joseph V. Ingraselino incorporated, among other things, a synchronized confetti sprayer into the device. (Apparently, there wasn’t a lot of market competition for a slow-descending-confetti-spraying-disco-ball as the patent — US6260989B1 — was abandoned before it expired.) These changes marked the fifth version of the Times Square Ball which debuted in the 2007 New Year’s Eve celebration. The original, a 700-pound device made from iron, wood, and incandescent light bulbs, debuted in 1907 — three years after the first Times Square celebration.

The first event was held in 1904 as an excuse for the owner of The New York Times, Adolph Ochs, to celebrate the company’s new headquarters. The first three celebrations concluded with firework displays and succeeded in drawing crowds away from the celebrations traditionally held at Trinity Church. However, Ochs wanted more of the market share so for the 1907-08 celebration, he tasked his chief electrician, Walter F. Palmer with producing an even grander spectacle. Palmer, having seen one descend every day at noon at the Western Building, suggested they use a “time ball.”

Even in Ochs’ and Palmer’s time, time balls were largely obsolete. They had been used in the previous century to communicate a uniform time to ships. Invented in 1829 by English Captain of the Royal Navy Robert Wauchope, the time ball was very similar to our modern Times Square ball — though typically far less extravagant. A large sturdy ball would be painted a bright color and suspended from a pole. At 1 pm daily, the ball would drop. Seafarers could watch this occur and synchronize their timepieces without having to come ashore.

It is a fitting symbol, then. As the time balls were once used to unify nations to a shared clock, people around the world now observe and celebrate the passage of time on a shared planet by watching a shimmering ball descend every year in New York City.