Times Square Bash Makes a Clean Break From 1996

NEW YORK —  An 88-year-old washerwoman who said she never stayed up until midnight had the honor Tuesday of dropping the ball to herald 1997 at the annual Times Square bash, as revelers across the country celebrated New Year’s Eve.

Oseola McCarty, who is nearly as old as the Times Square celebration, was invited to throw a switch at one minute to midnight to start the ball of lights descending a pole for the nationally televised celebration.

McCarty, of Hattiesburg, Miss., became an instant celebrity last year when she donated her life savings of $150,000 to the University of Southern Mississippi.

The lasers, strobes and other lights assembled in Times Square added up to 2 billion candlepower, enough to make Times Square the “brightest point on Earth,” said Gretchen Dykstra, president of the Times Square Business Improvement District.

In a takeoff on New York’s signature event, Tempe, Ariz., devised a tortilla chip drop, using a crane to dip a 250-pound metal chip into a giant, fake jar of salsa.

In Boston, “a gazillion” people were estimated to attend the nonalcoholic First Night celebration, said Michelle B. Jackson of First Night Boston, the event’s sponsor. “Last year the police estimate was 1.9 million people. Each year it’s gone up,” she said.

The festivities in Boston, the city that originated the nonalcoholic New Year’s celebrations that are now common across the country, included no fewer than 43 indoor events plus a multitude of outdoor celebrations.