NEW YEAR’S EVE
Uptown Kingston ready to ring in the New Year.
KINGSTON, N.Y. » Uptown’s New Year’s celebration returns with the city taking over as host of the event.
This year’s festivities include a one-hour performance by Kingston-based rockabilly act Lara Hope and the Ark-Tones starting at 11 p.m., a ball drop ceremony at midnight featuring a new ball made by Midtown-based Possibility Studios; and fireworks launched from the Kingston Plaza.
While previous New Year’s celebrations featured a mix of free and paid activities everything will be free this year.
Mayor Steve Noble could not offer an exact amount for what the New Year’s celebration will cost the city this year compared to years past, but he said local businesses have picked up much of the tab.
“I’m not anticipating much cost will be absorbed by taxpayers,” Noble said.
Megan Weiss-Rowe, the city’s director of communications and community engagement, said the city took over after the committee of local businesses that previously organized the festivities inquired about the city taking on a larger role.
“They needed some support of the city to help lead that,” Weiss-Rowe said.
Weiss-Rowe said she’s excited to have Lara Hope and the Ark-Tones perform for a full hour and to have Hope emceeing the event.
Weiss-Rowe hopes the performance makes people want to linger outside for a longer period time before midnight.
Many shops, bars and restaurants in Uptown plan on being open that event, Weiss-Rowe said.
Shuttle busses linking Downtown and Midtown to Uptown will be running from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m.
Kingston-based law firm Basch & Keegan will again sponsor fireworks that will be launched from down by Kingston Plaza just after midnight to cap off the celebration.
Even those who decide to stay home can enjoy a bit of the festivities with a new live broadcast from the event by Radio Kingston, the Kingston-based nonprofit that recently took over WKNY-AM 1490.
“We’ve never had a live broadcast of the event,” Weiss-Rowe said.
Lara Hope will join her husband Matt Goldpaugh on the stage, which will be near the steps of the old parking garage at the corner of Wall and North Front streets, and she’s looking forward to seeing the changes to this year’s celebration.
“I’m really looking forward to being able to represent our city and see so many familiar faces and meet new people from the community,” Hope said. “And I love the fact that it’s a free event, so I think this is going to encourage people to come out who may not have come out otherwise, and encourage people to bring their whole families out there.”
Hope is no stranger to the New Year’s celebration as she’s been part of the event in one way or another for the past five years, and this year is the band’s fourth year playing a show of some sort.
“Last year we were at BSP in the back with the Felice Brothers, and the year before that we’re were in the tent that was set up right on Wall Street, and the year before that we were in the Boitson’s pop up,” Hope said.
Hope offered a preview of this year’s set.
“We’re going to be working on a power-packed family friendly setlist of some brand new originals of ours, a few cover tunes that we hope some people recognize and some older songs we wrote as a fun for everybody, danceable party set,” Hope said.
She added that they draw influences from rock ‘n’ roll, country and blues.
Hope said even if the weather is cold it won’t bother her.
“I’m excited, I’ll deal with the cold,” Hope said. “I’ll be wearing a big fluffy coat.”
And she offered a few tips for festivalgoers trying to keep warm.
“I want people to forget it’s cold out and dance and have a good time and enjoy the unity and the fact we live in such a special place,” Hope said.
And she recommends picking up hand warmers.
Like years past, Hope will sing “Auld Lang Syne.”
She added that she’s glad to be close enough to home that she can simply walk back after the festivities are done.
Goldpaugh, a Kingstonnative, said he’s proud to help the city as they take over the event.
“It’s nice that Kingston has become such a fun and interesting place,” Goldpaugh said. “It’s really grown a lot.”
Golpaugh said he’s always remembered New Year’s Eve as a night when kids can stay up to midnight and people crowd around Times Square in New York City.
“It’s become a tradition to brave the cold,” Goldpaugh said.
With the clock ticking down the celebration, Martin Elting and Julia Perce, who own Possibility Studios, are putting the finishing touches on a new threefoot diameter ball.
Perce said that ball features lit frames of LED lights that can be programmed to a different sequence each year.
Perce said Elting loves Christmas lights and enjoys watching YouTube videos featuring light displays.
“He likes engineering,” Perce said. “He’s the one with the soldering iron,”
Perce said she brings her experience in theater, which includes theater tech, lighting, puppetry and acting to the project.
Even with this experience, Perce admitted staging a ball drop outside in Uptown is a far different than working in the controlled environment of a theater.
This means putting in a lot of extra safeguards to protect the audience, Perce said.
As for ensuring that things go off with out a hitch come midnight, Perce said that involves a lot of testing in their shop at 107 Greenkill Avenue.
“We’ll be running it up and down,” Perce said.
Elting, a plumber by trade, said building a New Year’s ball requires a lot of math and engineering.
But he loves to see that work translate into smiles, recalling Possibility Studios’ motorized radiocontrolled tricycle with a Kermit the Frog doll, riding around The Metro in Midtown during “Made in Kingston” earlier this month.
“The frog was engineering that turned into smiling kids,” Elting said.
Elting said on a recent afternoon that he wasn’t even sure exactly where the ball will drop as officials were still finalizing a location.
As for how far he hopes it will drop, Elting said it needs to drop at least 10 feet to have the proper effect.
“The more the better,” Elting said.
Elting said the packable LED modules could be inserted into a larger ball if the decision is made to replace this year’s ball with a bigger one in the future.
Noble said he doesn’t anticipate that happening anytime soon as he hopes this ball lasts for many years.
“I want it to be part of a new tradition in Kingston,” Noble said.