Ever wonder where the Times Square New Year’s Eve balls go when they’re retired?
No?
Well, then, putting that aside straightaway, we’re here to enlighten you.
The New York Times has now revealed that they end up about 50 feet underground, in a subbasement of 1 Times Square, the building from whose summit they once descended. There have been a total of 8 balls, at least by the somewhat improvisatory enumeration of Jeffrey Straus, CEO of the firm that produces the New Year’s Eve celebration. Unfortunately, Balls ## 1 & 2 have disappeared. Balls ##3, 4, and 5 turn out, actually, to have been the same ball, serving from the mid-1950’s to the mid-1990’s, but in separate incarnations: The original (#3), the same ball in the form of an apple, briefly during the early 1980’s (#4), before reverting to its original form (3 with an asterisk), and finally #5 when it got new skin and rhinestones.
#7 was a one-of-a-kind, serving only one year at the turn of the millennium, and we are now on #8, one covered with 2,688 Waterford Crystal triangles bolted to 672 LED modules, and capable of producing 16-million colors.
#6, you ask?
Here it, ingloriously, is:
