Times Square New Year's Eve ball drop: often imitated but never duplicated — theguardian.com

Among the most mystifying of American traditions is one of the most famous: the New Year’s Eve ball drop in New York City’s Times Square. Every year, thousands gather to be cordoned in by police, deprived of bodily movement by hordes of tourists and TV crews and crowded by the drunk, the cold and the painfully full of bladder. It is all for one purpose: to gaze up at a well-lit ball as it slowly descends during the last minute of the year.

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