9-DEGREE NEW YEAR’S EVEREST
Partying through coldest Times Sq. temps in 55 years
Revelers channeled their inner Sir Edmund Hillary in Times Square Sunday night and Monday morning as New York rang in 2018 on a bone-chilling New Year’s Eve — the coldest since 1962.
When the ball dropped at midnight, the mercury had plummeted to an icy 9 degrees — with a minus-4 wind chill — but that didn’t seem to bother the hundreds of thousands who packed into the Crossroads of the World.
Milwaukee tourist Sallie Anderson, 29, said the temps were balmy compared with where she spent the holiday last year — the South Pole.
“This is no big deal,” she said, wearing the same Canada Goose Expedition parka she donned for her Antarctic trek as she stood in Times Square with her mom.
They began waiting for the ball at 9:45 — in the morning!
“I’m actually overheating at the moment. I don’t have gloves on. I have warmers, but I don’t have them on,” Anderson said.
Even singer Mariah Carey — who made a successful comeback Sunday night after last year’s failed televised performance — seemed to scoff at the cold as she wore a lowcut evening gown under her wide-open fur coat (right) while belting out her hit “Hero.”
Midnight’s 9-degree temp was last bested by New Year’s Eve 1962, whenn the temperature was 4 degrees. The coldest ever was 7 below zero, in 1917.
While the temps might have been too much to lure many New Yorkers out to the spectacle, the area was teeming with tourists.
Lea Webber, 18, noshed on gingerbread ice cream as the thermometer teetered at 13 degrees just before 6 p.m.
“We live in Canada, and it’s really cold in Montreal,’’ Webber explained.
“Temperatures in the teens like today is not bad. This is better than normal for us.’’
Minnesotan Matthew Frank opted to augment his sweat shirt, jacket, winter hat and gloves by fattening himself up on a dinner of 10 chicken legs and six biscuits after a a hearty helping of bacon for breakfast.
“You need some fat to stay warm, so why not some bacon?” said Frank, who got to Times Square at 9:30 a.m.
Even out-of-towners from more balmy climes didn’t seem to mind the bitter cold.
Colombi a native Daniel Morales, 29, said he chose Times
Square over his tradition of jumping into the pool at his family’s Bogota home at midnight. “We were doing FaceTime with them 10 minutes ago. They were all by the pool. They are not jealous,” he said. The greatest challenge for many was that once they got in the police pens, they weren’t getting out until after the ball dropped — even if Mother Nature called. Some revelers gave up their secret: adult diapers. “So far, it’s dry, and I’m hoping to keep it that way,” said Dallas teacher Heather Feist, 32, who began lining up 9:30 a.m. Others were not so lucky. “I’ll definitely need to shower after peeing my pants all day,” said Ayame Yamakawa, 21, who traveled 22 hours from Okinawa, Japan, just for New Year’s Eve. She had already wet herself once by 2:41 p.m. after lining up at 10 a.m. Some, like NYU student Mizy Yamazaki, who underestimated the cold, cut their losses and left. “We thought, ‘ Oh, it’s only New York — we can do it. But nno,” she said. So how do actual New Yorkers brave the ball drop? One police officer on duty put it best: “I would be in bed under the covers with a cup of hot tea — watching this on television.” Additional reporting by Sarah Trefethen and Shari Logan