Like any proper New Yorker, I have avoided Times Square on New Year’s Eve the way one would avoid Reactor Four of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power plant in the late eighties.
Last night, however, due to certain obligations, I found myself on 44th street between 6th and Seventh Avenue itself. Security preparations are real and intense on 12/31 in Times Square. Before the so-called festivities begin, most of the streets were blocked off and people needed a pass of sorts to get through the barricades set up by New York’s finest (and grumpiest, yeah that’s right.) On my beloved 44th St. there were dump trucks full of salt or sand to deter any potential car bombers; a sobering reminder of the world we live in. (Thankfully this was the last sobering thing to occur.) The pass must be from a hotel or restaurant on the block, or you can’t get close to Times Square. Should you need to cross to the “other” side of Broadway, you have to walk all the way up to 50-something street or down to Thirty-Eighth maybe, depending on which cop you talked to.
Safely ensconced around a cold bottle of Tattinger, we commenced the annual wondering aloud of why people stand out there all day and night in the first place.
“There’s nothing to do… you can’t get caught drinking… Where do they even go to the bathroom?”
I learned that people wear adult diapers to do this. I learned that it is common. I understand it even less now.
I also learned that tequila and champagne is a rookie move, not to be repeated.
We were, however, only steps from the ball itself and as midnight grew closer, it was impossible to be immune to the excitement.
Suddenly, I heard the hysterical rumble of countless voices – frightening at first to hear all at once… “TEN!… NINE!..”
Powerless over the moment, we ran outside. We made it to the street just in time to hear half a million people in every direction shout, “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” There is so much confetti you can’t see across the avenue, and everyone is hugging and kissing and laughing. People shouted Happy New Year! to strangers from all walks of life and they shouted it back, and for one stupid, sappy moment I loved everyone.
I was struck by the timelessness of it. It took little imagination to picture the very first New Year’s Eve commemorating the renaming of Longacre Square when the Times bought that funny shaped little building at the middle of the intersection and the 1 train stop opened for the first time. This is one hundred and twenty-two years of people gathering to celebrate, to purge, be thankful, or mark another year.
I was also struck by the basic human need to celebrate life and to connect with a community of strangers and maybe for a second or two, the whole world.
And if there’s one place everyone in the world likely knows – it’s good old Forty Fourth and Broadway. And they play Sinatra’s New York, New York, and we all sing along, and we are alive and healthy with another chance to get it right this time.
