Revelers set to pack into Times Square for annual New Year’s Eve ball drop

The Related Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The confetti has been examined for airiness. The large numerals – 2 0 2 4 – are in place. And the luminous ball, bedazzled in 2,688 crystal triangles, is mounted to the pole from which it makes its 60-second descent at 11:59 p.m.

With throngs of revelers set to usher within the new 12 months underneath the intense lights of Occasions Sq., officers and organizers say they’re ready to welcome the crowds and guarantee their security.

At a safety briefing on Dec. 29, New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams mentioned there have been “no particular threats” to the annual New 12 months’s Eve bash, which is anticipated to attract tens of hundreds of individuals to the guts of midtown Manhattan on Dec. 31.

The celebrity-filled occasion will embody stay performances from Flo Rida, Megan Thee Stallion and LL Cool J in addition to televised appearances from Cardi B and others. Organizers mentioned in-person attendance is anticipated to return to pre-COVID ranges, at the same time as foot site visitors round Occasions Sq. stays down barely because the pandemic.

Amid near-daily protests in New York sparked by combating between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza, police mentioned they might broaden the safety perimeter across the occasion, making a “buffer zone” that can enable them to go off potential demonstrations.

Professional-Palestinian marches have disrupted latest occasions in New York, together with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the ceremonial lighting of the Rockefeller Christmas Tree,

“We might be out right here with our canines, on horseback, our helicopters, our boats,” Adams mentioned. Officers can even monitor protests with drones, he mentioned. “However as we noticed final 12 months, after having no particular threats we get a menace.”

Throughout final 12 months’s New 12 months’s Eve occasion, a machete-wielding man attacked three law enforcement officials a number of blocks from Occasions Sq..

Tom Harris, the president of the Occasions Sq. Alliance, mentioned there would at all times be safety considerations, however praised the police division’s measures to make sure participant security. Backpacks, duffel luggage and alcohol are banned contained in the safety perimeter, and all attendees should cross by police checkpoints.

His recommendation for these planning to attend the countdown: “Come early.”