The Times Square ball drop's raucous past and lonely present

The annual New Year's eve ball drop celebration in Times Square actually began with dynamite.

It was 1904. Adolph Ochs, the owner of the New York Times, had just finished construction of a towering new headquarters on 42nd Street.

Ochs was very proud of this new building. He even published a 48-page special supplement to celebrate a structure that, as the paper put it, "reaches higher toward the clouds than anything within twelve miles.
To celebrate the new building and the calendar flipping to 1905, the paper invited New Yorkers to celebrate at the new tower with fireworks and a performance by Francesco Fanciulli's band. Throngs have gathered in Times Square ever since, except for two years during World War II — and this year, because of the coronavirus pandemic.