Your Guide to New York’s New Year’s Eve Love-In

It’s New Year’s Eve, and the organizers and sponsors of the bash in Times Square want you to pucker up.

Apparently, 2011 is the year of love. This year’s celebration will include a “Kiss Platform” where two long-distance couples will be reunited and 30,000 revelers will receive samples of lip balm, courtesy of Nivea, one of the sponsors of the event, in preparation for smooching at midnight. Even the 12-foot wide, 11,875 pound geodesic sphere that an estimated one billion people will watch is themed “Let There Be Love.” Waterford Crystal has added 288 new triangles etched with “a romantic pattern” that will join the 2,688 crystals covering 32,256 digitally controlled Philips Luxeon L.E.D.’s, which use about as much energy per hour as two traditional home ovens.

And by the time it’s all over, the 453 bulbs that light the seven-foot-tall “2011″ sign and the tons of confetti fall into the slush, one couple will have been pronounced man and wife.

Two Marine Corps reservists, Bethany Phillips and Geoffrey Dubie, who met in Iraq and were engaged on a Bahamian beach, were selected in Get Married Media’s “Get Married in Times Square contest” to be the first couple in the celebration’s 106-year history to recite their vows in front of the throngs of revelers in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and one of his daughters will be there, as will aging performers from the 1980s like Rick Springfield, Backstreet Boys and NKOTB, with a special performance by the English singer Taio Cruz, who will sing “Falling In Love” and John Lennon’s “Imagine.”

Snooki, from MTV’s reality series “Jersey Shore,” will not be there, however. Here is the complete schedule of the evening’s events.

Mary Altaffer/Associated Press

Front loaders removed snow from Broadway, north of Times Square on Thursday.

The festivities will begin at 4 p.m. under partly cloudy skies with temperatures hovering around the freezing mark.

Tim Tompkins, the president of the Times Square Alliance, which produces the event with Countdown Entertainment, estimated the organizers lost about a day due to the blizzard. But with the help of shovels, plows, industrial special snow melting machines and 500,000 pairs of feet trudging through the area, very little white will be left.

“The show must go on and the snow must be gone,” he said.

Where to Watch

Last year’s live Webcast was seen by hundreds of thousands of viewers in 196 countries worldwide, though many reported sluggish service, undoubtedly due to overtaxed networks. You can watch the stream, beginning at 5:50 p.m. Friday and ending after midnight, on TimesSquareNYC.org; Livestream.com/2011, TimesSquareBall.net, or below:

Watch live streaming video from 2011 at livestream.com

Revelers on the go can download the first official Times Square Ball App and watch on-demand videos at a comfortable arms-length distance from their mobile device, which is available for Android and Apple users free on iTunes. Mobile networks permitting, users with the application will be able to watch the entire six-and-a-half-hour sequence of events and post photos of their own celebrations, a selection of which will be projected on the “Toshiba Vision” sign below the Times Square Ball.

Check into Times Square on FourSquare, download the Facebook application, or use Twitter with the hashtag #TimesSquareBall.

Safety

At a news conference on Thursday morning, Mayor Bloomberg outlined the basic rules.

“No backpacks, no alcohol, you’ve got to behave,” he said. “The kinds of things you would expect. Every year we have a great celebration and I think this will be another one.”

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, who was also at the news conference, added that, “we have no specific threats against the city on New Year’s Eve. Any time large numbers of people come together, we put in our counterterrorism overlay.”

Asked if the police would do anything differently because of recent cases of package bombs emanating from overseas, Mr. Kelly said, “We always do things a little bit differently, we don’t want to get stuck in a rut, so some of our deployments will change. We have a lot of detection equipment that we deploy. We have blocker cars; over sixty blocker cars that will be in place; our helicopters. There’s thirty-three dinner cruises on the river. We police those. There’s a lot of activity going on. We have a lot of experience in dealing with it. And, again, I think it will be a safe and happy event.”

Mr. Kelly said the department was sensitive to any signs of a dirty bomb or radiation.

“We have several thousand radiation detectors that are deployed with our officers,” he said. “We have large radiation detection equipment that we deploy on vehicles. We actually have it on all our harbor launches in the water, so we’re certainly very sensitive to that issue.”

Marcus Yam for The New York Times

Daniel McGowan sorts out inflated balloons to be handed out at the event.

Getting There

The New York Police Department will begin restricting access to streets in and around Times Square about 2:30 p.m. Seventh Avenue, from 41st to 59th Streets, Broadway, from 47th to 59th Streets and 43rd to 47th Streets, from Sixth to Eighth Avenue, will all be closed to traffic.

When Times Square closes to vehicle traffic at 3:00 p.m., revelers can begin to fill up the viewing sections along Broadway and Seventh Avenue, moving northward from 43rd Street to Central Park, as designated by Police Officers.

Beginning at 5 p.m. 42nd Street from 6th to Eighth Avenues will be closed to traffic.

Moving across town between 42nd and 59th Streets will be difficult after 6 p.m. You won’t be allowed to cross Broadway or Seventh Avenue once the streets have been closed. If your destination is east of Broadway/Seventh Avenue, you must enter at Sixth Avenue. If your destination is west of Broadway/Seventh Avenue, you must enter at Eighth Avenue.

Visitors are encouraged to walk or take the subway to 42nd Street. Note that only the Sixth and Eighth Avenue exits will be open after 7 p.m. The southbound and northbound N/R lines will skip the 49th Street station beginning at 7 p.m., until after midnight, and the northbound No. 1 train will skip the 50th Street station during the same period.

Once you get out of the subway, police officers will direct you to viewing sections marked off with barricades that are first-come-first-served.

The official rules state:

Backpacks and large bags prohibited

Alcoholic beverages prohibited

Property may not be abandoned at checkpoints

Attendees who leave before the ball drops will not be able to gain entry to their original viewing area

Marcus Yam for The New York Times

Landmark Sign company workers erected the illuminated ball during a dress rehearsal.

The organizers, the mayor and the police department are planning on another success this year.

The goal, Mr. Tompkins said, is to “break through that lovable but persistent cynicism of New Yorkers and to ask: What are we hopeful about and what are we celebrating?”

“It’s a determination to celebrate despite the trials and tribulations and traumas of life,” he added.

(source:blogs.nytimes.com)

New Year's Eve -- Live from Times Square

New Year's Eve 2010-2011 New York City Fireworks (HD)

New Year's 2011 Celebrations Begin Across 

the Globe

Moscow joins global New Year Eve,Fireworks over Kremlin

MOSCOW: A blaze of fireworks erupted over the Kremlin in Red Square on Friday as Moscow joined people around the globe welcoming in 2011 with a glittering array of parties.

But as President Dmitry Medvedev vowed in his regular New Year's Eve address to create a "powerful, open and friendly" Russia, celebrations in the country were marred by the arrests of nearly 120 protesters during New Year's Eve opposition rallies held in central Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

In Europe large crowds were set to throng landmarks like London's Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower, following a big freeze that paralysed travel and cut power and water supplies for tens of thousands.

On the Champs Elysees in Paris, thousands were gathering to welcome the New Year on one of the world's most famous streets.

"This is the place to be!" said Gillian Lancaster, 46, who had come to Paris from Britain with her husband to ring in the New Year, adding that she was hoping for "health and happiness" in 2011.

Security forces were out in full force in Paris and the rest of France, where officials said 54,000 police had been deployed to maintain order during the New Year's festivities.

In New York, workers were scrambling to plough snow out of Times Square for the famous New Year countdown, after a blizzard dumped 32 inches (80 centimetres) on the city and surrounding areas.

As many as a million people -- monitored by a high-tech police presence -- were expected to mass in Times Square.

As Sydney rung in the New Year, a fiery waterfall plunged from the landmark Harbour Bridge as seven tonnes of fireworks ignited in the night sky, thrilling 1.5 million people crammed on the city's foreshore.

Party-goers carrying blankets and camping equipment began descending on Sydney harbour more than 12 hours before the main fireworks display, with new arrivals turned away as early as 3:00 pm (0400 GMT).

"It's absolutely beautiful," said Shirley Marlin, as she watched the pyrotechnics, while her husband Ron added: "We're very, very lucky to have this harbour."

The celebrations followed devastating floods that have hit 200,000 in the country's northeast, muting the festivities there, while extreme heat prompted wildfire warnings around Melbourne and Adelaide in the south.

Earlier, the 6,000 residents of the tiny Pacific nation of Kiribati were the first to see in the new year, while New Zealand's Auckland also marked the occasion with fireworks.

In New Zealand's Christchurch, hit by a powerful earthquake in September, officials only approved celebrations after late checks and modifications, including removing the city cathedral's crucifix in case it fell on revellers.

In Asia hundreds of thousands of people gathered to watch a glittering fireworks-and-laser display along neon-lit Hong Kong's harbour. Dozens of boats also moored in Victoria Harbour for the intense five-minute display.

In Japan millions of people visited Shinto shrines to "purify" themselves.

Although Lunar New Year is a much bigger event in the continent, thousands braved Beijing's cold for the countdown at an upmarket shopping centre, while about 7,000 people had been expected at a kite-flying event in central Shanghai.

In Myanmar democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi, released this year after more than seven years of house arrest, called for the country's people "to struggle together with new strengths, new force and new words in the auspicious new year".

Police were on high alert for attacks in major cities in Pakistan, where New Year celebrations are traditionally quiet, private affairs.

Violence had flared earlier on Friday as police and demonstrators clashed during a mass protest strike that closed businesses across the country over a bid to end the death penalty for blasphemy.

In the financial hub Karachi -- where police fired tear gas to quell demonstrations -- thousands of Pakistanis were set to celebrate the new year on the shores of the Arabian Sea.

Revellers in India's financial and entertainment capital Mumbai -- scene of a 2008 attack that killed 166 people -- were given the go-ahead to party through the night despite intelligence about a possible militant strike.

Despite chilly and misty weather, tens of thousands of people were expected to gather in London to watch the annual New Year's Eve fireworks display set against the backdrop of the London Eye big wheel.

However with the government's austerity measures set to bite early in 2011, a survey suggested that most Britons were planning low-key festivities to save money.

(source:indiatimes.com)

New Year's Eve :Auckland

The second decade of the millennium arrived in relative peace and quiet throughout most of the country and police say it is because widespread liquor bans let them keep drunken troublemakers under tight control.

In Auckland the noisiest part of the New Year's Eve celebration was the $100,000 fireworks display from the top of the Sky Tower in the central city, and from two barges in Waitemata Harbour.

The boom of the fireworks going off was heard on the North Shore and in other parts of Auckland several kilometres from the centre of the city.

Auckland police said it was a relatively quiet night although they conceded the city tended to empty out for New Year, with many people heading for some of the holiday hot spots in the Bay of Plenty and in the Far North.

Details of numbers arrested in Auckland and in the Bay of Plenty were not immediately available although Tauranga police spokeswoman, Jacky James said Mt Maunganui and Tauranga were relatively peaceful.

She said the liquor bans allowed police to kept the troublemakers and drunks out of the areas where people wanted to see the New Year in without the major disorder caused by alcohol.

"They (the liquor bans) are there exactly for that reason so we can police the liquor ban and prevent major disorder.

"We make no apologies for that because it helps prevent problems."

Liquor bans were first introduced in Tauranga in 2004 but amended in 2008 to make the bans permanent 24 hours a day.

In Gisborne the Rhythm and Vines concert attracted about 25,000 people but police reported few incidents.

In the Nelson area 21 people were arrested, including six for disorderly offences and five for being drunk. Three were also arrested for breaching bail conditions, three for assault and two for breaching the liquor ban.

Nelson police said there were also arrests for possession of cannabis and disqualified driving and three drivers were processed for alleged drink driving.

The Maitai Camp in Nelson had about 1400 young people on New Year's Eve. Police said numbers were down from last year but campers and visitors were well behaved and there were no problems.

"We made a point of adopting a high profile, being very visible as we moved around and dealing with the little things before they had a chance of getting out of hand" said Inspector Brian McGurk.

He said careful planning and good organisation produced a quiet night.

In Cathedral Square in Christchurch nearly 12,000 people welcomed in the New Year.

Police said they were pleased with the trouble-free behaviour.

Inspector Derek Erasmus said it was good to see so many families and tourists enjoying the city's night life, the entertainment, and fireworks.

"Overall everyone behaved well, with only a few isolated incidents that police were able to control before they escalated."

There were 69 arrests in the central business district, most for breaches of the liquor ban and disorder.

"Police have been kept busy across the city tonight, however overall once Cathedral Square cleared, it was quieter than the last two years."

Wellington police reported a quiet night in the capital, with 20 arrests, mostly for disorder.

In one of the few Wellington incidents, a 39-year-old woman fell off Glasgow Wharf into Wellington Harbour. She was rescued by two locals, one an employee of Bluebridge Ferry, and was taken to Wellington Hospital.

In Wanaka in Central Otago police said they were also pleased with crowd behaviour.

A large crowd gathered at the waterfront and at pubs and bars in the town but police said it was a family affair and only 13 people were arrested, mostly for minor offences.

Police also stopped more than 1000 motorists but only one was over the legal breath-alcohol limit, said Senior Sergeant Allan Grindell.

"Wanaka is a safe and desirable place to live and visit and this result clearly reinforces this," he said.

(source:nzherald.co.nz)

New Year’s texts, calls expected to clog global cellular networks

MIAMI — At the stroke of midnight, millions of people — twice as many as last year — will be typing on their phones instead of kissing a loved one.

Carriers say texts and voice calls are expected to triple from 11:59 to midnight New Year’s Eve. And compared to last year’s countdown, there will be twice as many texters and three times as many people sending photos.

Don’t be surprised if that text message wishing Mom a happy New Year isn’t delivered until well into 2011, or doesn’t make it on the first try, especially if you’re in a crowded area.

Put simply, the current technology isn’t designed to flawlessly handle everyone sending a text message at the same time, despite continual improvements. It isn’t easy to keep up with the growing demand for bandwidth in a smart-phone-armed society.

“If money was no object ... there still would be customers who would not get all their text messages precisely at 12:01 on New Year’s Day,” said Sprint spokesman John Taylor.

Carriers say they’re prepared for the deluge of messages, but say it’s more likely that delays will happen for messages that travel between different carriers, rather than between two people under the same network.

But in the case of an event bigger than the ball drop — such as a Super Bowl or hurricane — the carriers deploy extra mobile cell sites to handle the demand. That’s not seen as being necessary for a 10-minute burst of messages.

Even if carriers had the money to build a data highway that would never have a voice or data traffic jam, they are limited in how much airwave real-estate they can use, called wireless spectrum.

Spectrums are frequencies assigned to radio, television, satellites, the military — and another chunk is assigned for phones. The slice of spectrum available for cell phones has grown 10 times larger since the 1970s, but there’s still not enough, said Stu Lipoff, an engineering consultant and board member of the IEEE Consumer Electronics Society.

“It turns out the demand and the need are growing faster than the available spectrum,” Lipoff said.

Lipoff offers a tip: On New Year’s Eve, users might have more luck sending a midnight greeting via photo message or e-mail versus a plain text message.

That’s because plain text-only messages travel on a separate, smaller pathway than other phone voice and data services. So in theory, if everyone is backed up on the texting road, users could have an easier time sending a message on the larger voice and data super-highway.

But Lipoff has a better method of welcoming his family into the New Year:

“I can use the highest-bandwidth system I know, which is shouting across the room and giving everyone a hug.”

(source:vancouversun.com)

New Year's around the globe

Multicoloured starbusts and gigantic sparklers lit the midnight sky over Sydney Harbour in a dazzling fireworks show witnessed by 1.5 million enthusiastic spectators who camped out all day to ring in the new year.

Sydney touted its claim to be the New Year's Eve capital of the world with a spectacular display over the iconic Harbour Bridge using 7 tons of fireworks, its largest since 2000.

''Stunning, beautiful,'' said Cinthya Romo, 32, a Sydney-based interpreter from Chile who watched the 12-minute fireworks show from the Opera House.

''Sydney's best show yet,'' exclaimed George Stamp, who enjoyed the show with his children.

Luxury yachts and smaller boats filled the harbour to party on the water, while others crammed into pubs, clubs and only balconies with a view of the fireworks show.

At the Opera Bar Beach House, hundreds of people paid up to $500 for the view and a party with a beach theme.

''This has got to be the best place to be in the world tonight,'' said guest Marc Wilson, 41.

A few hours earlier, New Zealand and many South Pacific island nations were first to see in new year.

New Zealanders sang and danced their way into 2011, with firework displays and sold-out concerts entertaining revelers.

In Auckland, explosions of red, gold and white burst over the Sky Tower while tens of thousands shouted, danced and sang in the streets below.

In Christchurch, thousands of partiers shrugged off a minor 3.3 earthquake that struck just before 10pm and celebrated in Cathedral Square. The city has rumbled with thousands of aftershocks from a powerful 7.1-magnitude quake that damaged buildings across the city on September 4.

As the clock ticked closer to 2011, cities across Asia readied for midnight events ranging from traditional prayers in Japan to a massive pyrotechnic display in the shape of a dragon in Taiwan. Europeans were looking forward to celebrations that could help them forget their economic worries.

In New York City, nearly a million revelers were expected to cram into the streets around Times Square to watch the traditional midnight ball drop. The 20-inch snowstorm that blanketed the city will be just a memory thanks to work crews and warmer temperatures.

At midnight Thursday - with just 24 hours to go - hundreds of people milled around Times Square as crews finished preparing TV sets for New Year's Eve broadcasts and vendors sold hats and noisemakers.

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Among the tourists were students from Grand Valley State University near Grand Rapids, Michigan, who were scoping out a good location for Friday night and marveling at the preparations.

''For sure, we're going to be here,'' said Ahmed Lachheb, 23, from Sfax, Tunisia.

''I'm going to be here near the closest restroom just in case,'' added Mohamed Azuz, also 23, from Tripoli, Libya.

This year marks the first time Vietnam's capital, Hanoi, officially celebrates the new year with a countdown blowout, complete with a light show and foreign DJs in front of the city's elegant French colonial-style opera house.

Vietnamese typically save their biggest celebrations for Tet, the lunar new year that begins on Feb. 3. But in recent years, the Western influence has started seeping into Vietnamese culture among teens, who have no memory of war or poverty and are eager to find a new reason to party in the Communist country.

At midnight in Taipei, Taiwan, fireworks will form a spiraling dragon climbing up the city's tallest skyscraper.

In Japan, New Year's Eve is generally spent at home with family but those who venture out go to temples to pray for good luck in the new year. At Zojoji, a 600-year-old Buddhist temple in central Tokyo, thousands were expected to release balloons at midnight carrying notes with their hopes for 2011.

In the Philippines, powerful firecrackers have injured at least 245 people in recent days and Health Secretary Enrique Ona urged safety during Friday's celebrations, saying he feared up to 1,000 injuries.

Many Filipinos, influenced by Chinese tradition, believe that noisy New Year's celebrations drive away evil and misfortune. But they have carried that superstition to extremes, exploding huge firecrackers sometimes bigger than dynamite sticks to welcome the new year.

In Europe, many people will be partying simply to forget their economic woes after a year that saw Greece and Ireland needing financial bailouts and others, such as Spain and Portugal, battling speculation that they will need similar aid.

In London, thousands will witness a musical and firework display at the 135-meter high London Eye, located on the southern banks of the Thames River. The Eye, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary, lies almost opposite the Big Ben clock tower at Parliament that will chime in 2011.

If not at home or at private parties, Spaniards traditionally gather in their main town squares to eat 12 grapes one by one as the bell in the square marks the countdown to 2011.

In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in her New Year message that Europe is dealing with a major test and must strengthen the euro, even as she celebrated Germany's emergence from the economic crisis, powered by strong exports.

Merkel said in her televised message being broadcast Friday that ``it was a good year for Germany.'

(source:stuff.co.nz)

Russia arrests opposition leaders on New Year's Eve

MOSCOW — Russian police on Friday detained several opposition leaders among nearly 120 protesters during New Year's Eve rallies held in central Moscow and Saint Petersburg, news reports said.

Moscow authorities allowed the opposition to stage a traditional end-of-month demonstration to assert their right to gather under the Russian constitution.

The 300-strong crowd chanted slogans in support of the jailed Kremlin critic and former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whose jail term was extended by six years Thursday, and called for broader political freedoms, news reports said.

But several opposition leaders, including former first deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov, broke through police lines, prompting their immediate arrest, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

Nemtsov, a key leader of Russia's liberal opposition, was to be kept in police custody until Sunday, opposition activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva told the Interfax news agency.

Police also detained Eduard Limonov, an opposition writer and leader of the radical National Bolshevik Party, near his Moscow home about an hour before he and his supporters were to hold an unsanctioned rally alongside the authorised one.

Shortly after his arrest, a court sentenced Limonov to 15 days in prison for insulting police during his detention, a court spokesman, Pyotr Chenik, was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency.

"They wrote in the police report that I made rude remarks and violated the public order law," Limonov told Moscow Echo radio, calling the allegation "a lie".

Ilya Yashin, the leader of the youth wing of the liberal Yabloko group, was also detained during the Moscow protest, news reports said.

Russian police said they detained 68 people in Moscow and 50 in Saint Peterburg during two unsanctioned rallies.

Opposition leaders call regular demonstrations on the 31st day of the month in honour of Article 31 of the constitution, granting Russians freedom of assembly.

Moscow authorities have until recent months refused to sanction such rallies, prompting frequent scuffles with the police.

There were no initial reports of violence during Friday's demonstrations.

(source:afp)