When Party Is Over, the Ball Lands Here By JAMES BARRON

December 31, 2009
When Party Is Over, the Ball Lands Here
By JAMES BARRON

Jeffrey A. Straus turned the key in the padlock and pushed the door open.

“This is it,” he said. “The vault.”

This is where the balls from New Year’s Eves past go after they have fallen for the last time: a subbasement room that is more Fibber McGee than Harry Winston — junky, jam-packed and dusty. Mr. Straus, the chief executive of the company that produces the New Year’s Eve celebration at 1 Times Square, had promised a look at the famed balls that were retired after their final countdowns.

In all the new years that have begun after a crowd chant of “10, 9, 8, 7,” Mr. Straus counts seven previous balls that were the focus of a much-watched descent. Two of them not only preceded Dick Clark, but they were also on the job before Guy Lombardo’s first downbeat at the Waldorf-Astoria.

But as Mr. Straus led the way into the vault, only one of the balls was present and accounted for. What happened to Nos. 1 and 2? “I don’t know where they are,” Mr. Straus said.

So what about Nos. 3, 4 and 5?

It turned out that those three were the same ball, the Methuselah of the New Year’s Eve celebrations. That one ball slid down the pole more than any of the others, from the mid-1950s until the mid-1990s.

But like some revelers in the crowd — and they know who they are — it had had a little work done over the years. So Mr. Straus counts it as No. 4 because it was turned into an apple in the 1980s, after the I♥NY campaign caught on.

He also counts it as No. 5 because, for 1996, it got new skin and rhinestones. (To make the math more confusing, from mid-’80s to the mid-’90s it reverted to its original, 1950s look — no more apple. Mr. Straus counts that as No. 3, “with an asterisk.”)

And No. 7? It is, as New Year’s balls go, a neophyte, having made only one trip down the pole, as 1999 yielded to 2000. It’s not in the vault, either. Mr. Straus said that it and No. 3-4-3*-5 had been shipped out to be ogled: No. 7 by tourists at the Times Square Visitors Center a few blocks away, the other by visitors to the Atlanta headquarters of Jamestown Properties, the real estate fund that owns 1 Times Square.

But No. 6 stood proudly in a cage in the corner of the vault, looking more like a satellite from the 1960s.

The vault is 50 feet beneath the slender, 24-story tower, which means it is 400 feet below where the ball will fall when Thursday ends and 2010 begins. It served as the electrical room after The New York Times sold 1 Times Square in the 1960s, Mr. Straus said. “The sides were filled with spare parts for the building engineers,” he said. “It was a natural place for the ball because of its electrical components.”

Still, there is more in the vault than just the Millennium Ball. On a shelf on one wall were silly looking hats from 1976 and T-shirts from 1997. “I never throw anything away,” Mr. Straus said.

And a few steps past the Millennium Ball were enough old numerals to welcome new years into the 26th century. The year 2543, anyone? That combination of numerals can be laid out from the ones on the floor. The “2” was made in 2001, when the clock was ticking toward a year with two 2s.

Last year, Mr. Straus stopped putting the ball away in January and installed one that is intended to stay outdoors, on its pole, all year long. It is covered with 2,688 Waterford Crystal triangles that are bolted to 672 light-emitting diode modules. Mr. Straus said it could generate 16 million colors.

That is 15,999,999 more than the first bulb, back in 1907. That one was made of iron and wood, was outfitted with 100 light bulbs and weighed 700 pounds.

The balls changed over the years, but the way they were lowered did not — until Mr. Straus came along. “Nineteen ninety-five, my first year, we converted from doing it by hand, six workers and a rope with a stop watch, to computer controls and an electronic winch,” he said.

But all the planning and technology did not avoid what was, undoubtedly, the first mistake of 1996.

“We turned it off halfway down,” he recalled. “I learned my lesson.”

He was not the only one. “My parents were at a party — ‘My son does the ball drop,’ ” he said, repeating his parents’ boast. “Now they don’t talk about it until after it happens.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/nyregion/31vault.html

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Just made myself an OJ Cocktail of 50% less calories OJ, 1000 mg Emergen-C (tangerine flavor) & an Orange Airborne!! I refuse 2 get sick!!!

Intermission at the St. James Theatre recalling the Patti Lupone Diva moment when she l stopped the show -literally - during Gypsy:(