Why is Times Square on New Year’s Eve such a destination? As one New Yorker who actually went once discovered, you just have to experience it to understand it.
In millions of households across the country, on New Year’s Eve all eyes are on New York City where hundreds of thousands gather to watch a bejeweled, illuminated ball make its slow descent to mark the new year. Those who decide to make the pilgrimage in person start to fill Times Square in the morning. They settle in streetside, often bundled against the cold. In New York homes, like the one I was raised in, my relatives brine the pork shoulder that will become pernil, then get prettied up for evening festivities.
People have been making their way to Midtown Manhattan for the midnight revel in Times Square since 1904, when the owner of this newspaper, Adolph Ochs, organized a celebration to commemorate the opening of the paper’s new headquarters in Times Square.
