New Year starts cold in NYC
Security at all-time high for ball drop
NEW YORK — New Yorkers, celebrity entertainers and tourists from around the world packed into a frigid Times Square on Sunday to mark the start of 2018 with a glittering crystal ball drop, a burst of more than a ton of confetti and midnight fireworks.
It was only 10 degrees Fahrenheit in the city, and the celebration was less crowded than in other years. Some of the metal pens, usually packed with people, were only half-full. Some revelers, bundled up in hats, gloves, face masks and numerous layers of clothing, jogged to keep warm, as others bounced and danced. Some stood and shivered.
Security in the area was at an all-time high after a year that saw several fatal attacks on large crowds, including one in Times Square last spring.
Mariah Carey made it through her set on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest after bungling the performance the previous year. She dressed in a floor-length gown and a furry white coat, performing her 1990s hits “Vision of Love” and “Hero.”
The dazzling finale of the show was the traditional drop of a Waterford Crystal ball down a pole atop 1 Times Square.
This year, the ball was 12 feet in diameter, weighed 11,875 pounds and was covered
with 2,688 triangles that change colors like a kaleidoscope, illuminated by 32,256 LED lights. When the first ball drop happened in 1907, it was made of iron and wood and adorned with 100 25-watt light bulbs. The first celebration in the area was in 1904, the same year the city’s first subway line started running.
Reveler Colleen Keenan, who along with her son braved the cold in Times Square, said the celebration was “a beautiful experience” and that “there’s nothing like it.”
Remle Scott, 22, and her boyfriend Brad Whittaker, 22, of San Diego, arrived shortly after 9 a.m., saying they were trying to keep a positive attitude as temperatures hovered in the teens. Each was wearing several layers of clothing.
“Our toes are frozen, so we’re just dealing with it by dancing.” Scott said.
Some wore red scarfs that read “Happy New Year” and others donned yellow and purple hats as a pizza deliveryman sold pies to the hungry crowd.
In a prime viewing spot near 42nd Street, Alexander Ebrahim grinned as he looked around at the flashing lights of Times Square.
“I always saw it on TV, so I thought why not come out and see it in person,” said the 19-year-old from Orange County, Calif. “It’s an experience you can never forget.”
Michael Waller, 45, made a snap decision on Saturday evening to drive straight from Columbus, Ohio. He made it to Times Square at 8 a.m. and waited all day in
front of the ball.
“I didn’t want to stay home for this, by myself,” he said.
The New Year’s celebration was the city’s second-coldest on record. The coldest ball drop celebration was in 1917, when it was only 1 degree.
As revelers celebrated in Times Square, police were taking no chances with security. Garages in the area were emptied of cars and sealed off. Detectives were stationed at area hotels working with security officials to prevent sniper attacks.
Thousands of uniformed officers lined the streets. Cement blocks and sanitation trucks blocked vehicles from entering the secure area where spectators gathered. Revelers had to pass through one of a dozen checkpoints where they were screened and then screened again as they made their way to the main event.
At the corner of 48th Street and Seventh Avenue, Chris Garcia, his girlfriend Zayra Velazquez and her brother Edgar Valdez stood rigidly, having waited in the cold for almost six hours. Valdez, 19, said he felt “pretty safe” at the event.
“They checked us pretty good,” he said. “Police checked what we had, and another scanned us with metal detectors.”
The Police Department estimates that it costs $7.5 million to protect the event.
In Las Vegas, revelers were ringing in the new year under the close eye of law enforcement just three months after the deadliest
mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
Tourism officials expected about 330,000 people to go to Las Vegas for the festivities, which are anchored by a roughly eight-minute fireworks display at the top of seven casino-hotels.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department was to have every officer working Sunday, while the Nevada National Guard activated about 350 soldiers and airmen.
The federal government also sent dozens of personnel to assist with intelligence and other efforts.
PRAYER FOR THE WORLD
Pope Francis on Sunday decried wars, injustices, social and environmental degradation and other manmade ills which he said spoiled the year.
Francis presided at a New Year’s Eve prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica, a traditional occasion to say thanks in each year’s last hours.
In his homily, the pope said God gave to us a “whole and sound” year, but “we humans in so many ways ruined and hurt it with works of death, with lies and injustices.”
“The wars are the flagrant sign of this repeated and absurd pride,” he said. “But so are all the little and big offenses against life, truth, brotherhood, that cause multiple forms of human, social and environmental degradation.”
Francis added: “We want to, and must assume, before God, our brothers and Creation our responsibility” for the harm.
Despite the gloom, Francis said “gratitude prevails” thanks to those who “cooperate silently for the common good.” He singled out parents and educators who try to raise young people with a sense of responsible ethics.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday issued a “red alert” for more unity in
2018 after what he called a year of setbacks.
Nationalism and xenophobia are on the rise, inequality is growing, climate change is accelerating and the world is seeing horrific violations of human rights, he said. Global anxieties about nuclear weapons were the highest since the Cold War.
The Portuguese diplomat made no mention of specific countries in his brief New Year’s message.
Guterres said he took office a year ago with an appeal that 2017 would be a year of peace
“Unfortunately — in fundamental ways, the world has gone in reverse,” he said. “On New Year’s Day 2018, I am not issuing an appeal. I am issuing an alert — a red alert for our world.”
REMEMBERING VICTIMS
Some 100 people gathered outside an Istanbul nightclub Sunday to remember the victims of a deadly New Year’s attack a year ago.
The group, holding carnations, observed a moment of silence. Among them were families of victims and consular and local officials. Islamic, Christian and Jewish prayers were recited.
Early on Jan. 1, 2017, an assailant shot his way into the Reina nightclub where hundreds were celebrating the New Year. Thirty-nine people were killed — mostly foreigners — and 79 wounded.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility.
Lead suspect Abdulkadir Masharipov was apprehended in a police operation after two weeks in hiding. He is on trial along with 56 others.
MIDEAST, EUROPE
Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, again served as the focal point of New Year’s Eve celebrations — though this year authorities decided against fireworks and chose a massive LED light show on the structure.
That was in part due to safety in the city-state in the United Arab Emirates, which saw a massive skyscraper fire on New Year’s Eve in 2015.
The display, running down the east side of the 2,716-foot tower, showed Arabic calligraphy, geometric designs and a portrait of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the UAE’s first president.
But a display of neighboring nations’ flags didn’t show Qatar’s flag. The UAE joined Bahrain, Egypt and Saudi Arabia in boycotting the nation in June over allegations Doha supports extremists and has too close ties to Iran. Qatar, which will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, denies supporting extremists and shares a massive offshore natural gas field with Tehran.
Tens of thousands of Parisians and tourists were heading to the Champs-Elysees to attend a firework show at Napoleon’s Arc de Triomphe monument, at the end of the famous avenue with its lines of trees sparkling with lights.
New Year’s Eve celebrations were placed under high security in France, which has been hit by a series of attacks by Islamic extremists in recent years.
French Interior ministry said 100,000 police officers and soldiers and 40,000 rescuers were deployed across the country — including 2,500 on the Champs-Elysees.
Fireworks lit up the sky above Sydney Harbor. The fireworks display included a rainbow waterfall cascade of lights and color flowing off the harbor’s bridge to celebrate recently passed legislation legalizing gay marriage in Australia.
Germans were to ring in 2018 under tight security from police mindful of widespread sexual abuse of women in Cologne two years ago and of a terrorist attack on a Christmas market last year.
Police in Berlin added 1,600 officers on duty and said that large bags and knapsacks would not be allowed on the “Party Mile” leading from Brandenburg Gate, where thousands were expected to celebrate at midnight. Police in Frankfurt imposed similar restrictions in the celebration area along the Main River in the country’s financial capital.
Two years ago, New Year’s in Cologne was marred by groping and theft committed against hundreds of women, in most cases by migrants. On Dec. 19, 2016, Tunisian asylum seeker Anis Amri drove a stolen truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people.
Security was also tight in the southern Indian city of Bangalore to prevent a repeat of incidents of alleged groping and molestation of several women during last year’s New Year’s Eve celebrations.
Sunil Kumar, the city’s police commissioner, said at least 15,000 police officers were on duty and were being aided by drones and additional closed-circuit television cameras.