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Did you know that the tradition of celebrating New Years Eve in Times Square while lowering a ball to signal midnight was actually created and inspired by Jewish immigrants? Well, here's a thread about it!
Starting in 1896, a German-Jewish immigrant named Adolph Ochs bought the New York Times and situated its headquarters in what is now none other than Times Square.
Ochs wanted to draw people away from the typical New Year's Eve celebration on Wall Street and the Trinity Church, so he decided to plan a gathering at the Times Tower, the second-tallest building in the city. However, he was denied a fireworks permit a few years later.
This is where Jacob Starr, a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine comes in. In 1907, Ochs commissioned a 700-pound ball made of wood and iron to be the centerpiece of the New Year's celebration. Starr, who worked at Artkraft Strauss, would be the architect and the man to lower the ball.
Though the invention of the time ball dates back to maritime clock calibration, Starr and Ochs are accredited with the creation of the New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square which originally featured a ball that was 5 ft in diameter and aglow with 100 twenty-five-watt bulbs.
As we enter the new year, the planned 2021 Times Square celebration will feature an 11,875-pound ball covered in 192 Waterford Crystals and 672 LEDs. This year's NYE celebration may be slightly different, but the original concept still stands strong. See you at midnight, 2021
You can read more about the Times Square Ball here @TimesSquareNYC https://www.timessquarenyc.org/times-square-new-years-eve/nye-history-times-square-ball
If you want to watch an interview with Jacob Starr's granddaughter, you can watch it here thanks to @jdforward https://forward.com/schmooze/358394/meet-the-jewish-family-behind-the-new-years-eve-ball-drop/
Special credit to the @JTAnews for detailing the very Jewish creation of the Times Square celebration here https://www.jta.org/jewniverse/2015/the-jew-who-got-the-ball-dropping-on-times-square
