NEW YORK — It’s the biggest public party in the country. Nearly a million revelers will cram the streets of Times Square to watch the ball drop on New Year’s Eve.
It also is remarkably crime-free and orderly. In the past decade, there have been few arrests and virtually no major problems funneling people in and out of the confetti-filled streets to ring in the New Year.
That’s due mostly to what the partygoers don’t notice: throngs of police and counterterrorism officers blanketing the area, working from a security plan tailored for the event.
Manhole covers are sealed. Counter-snipers are stationed on secret rooftops. Officers carry beeper-sized radiation detectors. Plainclothes officers are stationed in metal pens with the crowds, along with a uniformed presence and undercover officers.
Bomb-sniffing dogs are on site. Purses are searched. Checkpoints are set up, and perimeters are created using concrete blocks. Passing vehicles are checked for safety. Hazmat teams are on standby.
New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Thursday that there are no “specific threats against the city” this New Year’s Eve. Crews have removed large drifts from the 20-inch snowstorm, and warm weather is helping to melt what’s left.
Police brass tweak their security plan every year, using lessons learned from previous scares such as the botched Times Square car bombing in May and the attempted bombing of a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in Portland, Ore., near Thanksgiving. New York police counterterrorism chief James Waters mined information on the suicide bombing this month in Stockholm, Sweden.
“Intelligence informs a lot of what we do,” Waters said. “Understanding what the threat is against New York, what’s the threat against the country, and everything that comes behind that.”
Revelers have gathered for a century in Times Square to welcome the New Year, but it hasn’t always been a family-friendly affair. In the early 1990s, before the redevelopment of the bowtie collection of streets at Broadway and Seventh Avenue, the area was overrun with crime and home to sex shops and peep shows.
But Disney, upscale hotels, theme stores and restaurants arrived in the mid-1990s and changed the feel of the area, drawing more families and tourists, and with it, a softer crowd.
Police began to ramp up security efforts with worries over millennium threats.
Officers used metal pens to control where the crowd stands — keeping a path clear for emergency trucks. And they banned alcohol and backpacks. Uniformed police flooded the area. Plainclothes officers roamed the crowds.
After Sept. 11, 2001, “we added a counterterrorism overlay” to New Year’s security, said Paul Browne, the New York Police Department’s deputy commissioner for public information. “We have kept changing it based on the needs ever since.”
Since the terrorist attack, there have been at least six foiled plots against the city — including the plot by Faisal Shahzad to bomb Times Square on May 1 with a used car stuffed with a propane-and-gasoline bomb.
The NYPD meets months in advance to set rules and share plans with area restaurants and hotels that host fancy parties, along with the Times Square Alliance. They plot out where TV trucks will be stationed and the best exit routes in case of an emergency.
The metal pens, which can stretch as far as Central Park, are set up to hold back crowds at about 3 p.m. on Dec. 31. Garages in the area are swept for explosives. Hotel staff are on alert for anything unusual. Those who leave their viewing spots can’t return to the same place.
After the clock strikes 12 and the glittering, Waterford crystal ball drops, the crowd disappears quickly. It’s like pulling the stopper in a bathtub, with nearly a million people fanning out to continue their night.
Sanitation workers start the cleanup, and the NYPD begins planning for next year.
1 ton
Amount of confetti dropped on Times Square on New Year’s Eve
11,875 pounds
Weight of the Waterford crystal ball that drops at midnight. It’s 12 feet in diameter and decorated with 2,688 crystal triangles.
39
Consecutive years, 2010 included, that Dick Clark has hosted a “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” television special
