DUKES FANS:
Something Old, Something New; Something Borrowed: New Year’s Eve Then and Now
(This is one of my favorite posts. I received a number of
comments when I wrote it in 2018, so I changed it a bit and decided to
run it again. Apologies for the length; I hope you enjoy it)
New Year's is not "new". Some form of it has been celebrated for thousands of years on every continent and probably for
as long as there have been human communities. The first
recorded celebrations come from some 2,5000 years ago in
Mesopotamia-Iraq. This is the place most historians agree civilization
started. Around spring and fall equinoxes, when days and nights were of
equal length, they celebrated both the planting season and the harvest
season as days of renewal for the cities, the surrounding areas, and of
the earth itself. “Akitu” was the name of the festival, and historians
look to those week-long celebrations as the first recorded instances of
celebrating what might be called a “new year.” Of course, such
celebrations are really much older than that; people did things long before humans invented writing and keeping records. But once farming and agriculture became mainstays of human activity people simply had to know when the ideal times were to plant and to harvest. Knowing the cycle of the seasons became essential to city survival. We
also realized that what happened in the sky influenced and heralded
what would happen on earth, so we kept track of what we now call
equinoxes, solstices, moon phases and more. And to attempt to have these occurrences benefit
us, we developed rituals, celebrations, and practices to try to
influence the force or forces that controlled those things. We were literally hoping and praying for outcomes that would benefit us in the future.
New year celebrations were originally a part of this process. And
like most human celebrations, the observances involved ritual foods,
ritual actions, ritual music, ritual dancing, and ritual prayer and
introspection. Humans tend to meet the same realities of life in pretty much the
same ways, and ritual, religion, symbol, and music are all among the
ways we signify that something important and special is taking place. It is simply what we humans do.
However, when we think of New Year’s Eve celebrations today most folks
are not thinking about global cultural history and/or how what we do
today links to what humans have done for thousands of years. Many folks
are instead thinking about a party, a religious ceremony, special foods,
and resolutions. And most of us are also well aware
of a place called Times Square in New York City, a countdown, and that
big shiny ball dropping down. Even if we are not planning to watch it,
we are all aware of this event happening. I used to love to watch it on
TV when I was much younger, begging my mother to let me stay up so I
could watch it. The crowd, the colors, the noise and the outlandishness all amazed me. There was the confetti, the movie and music stars, the noise, the big ball
and the drama of thousands of people counting down all together, me
along with them in my living room. It was a secular ritual, I realized
as I grew older and understood it more. And I was and am still fascinated by how so many aspects of it connect to some of our most ancient ways.
In normal, pre-COVID times, some 1 million people
would crowd into Times Square for this celebration-1 MILLION people.
The thought that 1 million people would willingly want to stand together
in freezing cold weather in New York City for hours is mind-boggling. And many of those people are quite possibly drunk, high, and almost out
of control. What sense does that make?? No one in their right mind
would suggest doing that as a fun way to spend time in New York City. But of course, we are often “out of our minds” in the midst of a ritual. Ritual can transform us and take us to a totally different state of being in which the irrational makes perfect sense.
It is estimated that over 1 billion—1 BILLION- people watch the show on
TV around the world, even in places where the time differences mean
that it is already past midnight and a new year where they actually are. Who knows how many people will stream it or watch it on the web or YouTube
or Facebook Live. It is truly a worldwide phenomenon-one of the very
few things that universally and temporarily unite us as a species.
Whether we watch it or deliberately avoid it, we are all aware of it. It
is that universal. But how did this come to be? How did this place and this particular ceremony
come to symbolize the coming of a New Year to so many people of so many
different nationalities, colors, religions, and cultures? Well, it all started with one businessman and some unique things about the early part of the 20th century.
Adolph Ochs was publisher of the New York Times, for which Times Square
was named. Ochs and the Times were spearheading the northern and
western growth of New York City beyond its Lower Manhattan starting
point by the rivers and the ports. He wanted to call attention to and
spur this uptown growth; he saw it as essential to the economic growth
of the city. And he wanted a way to make that happen. This was in the
late 19th and early 20th centuries, a time period which saw the advent of new technologies that could seemingly conquer
heights, hold up the new “skyscraper” buildings, light up the whole
night sky, create vehicles that did not need animals to move, and much,
much more. It seemed as if something new was being developed every
day. Ochs liked to throw lavish parties, and he was one of the early
promoters of “grand spectacles” that the 20th
century would so regularly produce. To that end he started staging New
Year’s Eve parties that filled the air above the Times building with
fireworks and bright lights. These events became immensely popular, and
they drew thousands of spectators uptown to view them and to think about
the area. But fireworks above meant hot ashes falling to the ground
below. This was clearly dangerous, so the city banned the fireworks for 1907 going into 1908.
Ochs’s flashy fireworks display had started drawing Manhattanites
uptown and away from the traditional New Year’s celebration at Trinity
Church in Lower Manhattan. There
worshipers and celebrants listened to the tolling of the church’s bells
to signal a new year. The bells were amplified on sound trucks
and they were still a popular draw. If Ochs was going to continue to
draw people uptown and away from Trinity, he needed a new big draw: a
new spectacle. He found one a few blocks away from his office by doing
what we now call “re-positioning" or "re-purposing.”
“Time balls’ were an answer to the problem of keeping accurate
time at sea for ships. Developed in the early 1800’s, most port cities
had them by the turn of the century. They were huge colorful balls that
would rest atop high buildings.
They would descend exactly at noon every day so that Maritimers could
know the exact time. They could then use that information to set their
chronometers, measure longitude, and navigate more accurately. As the telegraph developed, coastal cities with time balls in place began to telegraph the exact time to other cities. Humans had managed to figure
a way to precisely measure and standardize time in a huge way, just in
time for the new factory age of mass production that was to come.
Most cities had time balls by the early 1900’s, and most people knew
what they were. Philadelphia had one atop the Bourse Building for
several years. Western Union, the major telegraph company, had one at
its New York office near the Times. It would descend every weekday at
noon to let people know exactly what time it was. Ochs had found what he
needed; he had a large time ball built, and on December 31st, 1907 thousands of people gazed up at the New York Times building and spied a big, shiny, 700 pound
ball atop a flagpole on the Times building that was awash in huge
multi-colored electric lights. A large crowd gathered around the
building, looking up. They had been told that something special was
about to happen.
As midnight approached, workers began lowering the giant ball by
ropes and pulleys. On top of the Times building a giant electric sign
counted down the seconds until the ball reached the bottom. At the
precise moment it landed, the number “1908” lit up the night sky. People
went nuts; there were shots fired, people kissing each other, trumpets
and noisemakers going off, and these new things called “automobiles”
honking their horns. The “event was a smash hit, and both a tradition
and a new ritual were born.
The ball drop was immensely popular. Promoting and covering it quickly
became a staple of magazine and newspaper articles, and when radio came
along it went national. It and Times Square eventually became one of the
signature things about New York City, and the city developed the area
further away from the ports. Midtown and uptown became important parts
of the city. When TV came on the scene, it became a big draw for network
TV, pulling in millions of viewers and eventually billions of
advertising dollars. It rapidly became an international phenomenon, and I cannot see that stopping anytime soon.
The ball has been re-designed, of course, several times, it has been
made of different substances, and it is now run by a computer timed to
the atomic clock. It is not the same 700 pond ball that started the
tradition. But in many important ways it really is the same ball. Beneath all of this technological change and modernization and improvement we can see the age-old human practice of meeting important events
the world regularly brings to us with ritual, symbol, and as a group.
Yes, it started out as a publicity stunt, a smart business move, and perhaps just as a way of showing off. But it has since become something all its own. It is a worldwide, collective ritual now; it
belongs to the world. And every year, for just a little while, the
world becomes one big village when the ball drop happens. That is the
magic and power of ritual taking place, and I think that is a good thing.
Of course, not everyone watches the ball drop. There is the recent
emergence and broadcasting of the country music themed "Nashville Big
Bash,” for example, and there are people who don’t acknowledge popular or commercial rituals. But the vast majority of us have to recognize and notice the passing of the old year and the arrival of a new one. And
we need to do it in groups; that is important to us humans. When we
celebrate New Year’s Eve and the New Year, we are standing with the
countless generations of humans who have gone before us. We are joining
with people who have for thousands of years collectively looked at what
was going on around them and had to figure out ways to respond to it.
Yes, we are digital and modern and “algorhythmed “and “civilized,” whatever that means. Essentially, though, we are all just humans navigating our way through the world and trying to cope, adjust, survive, and maybe do just a little better in the future than we did in the past. We make resolutions and celebrate re-birth. We meet the world with renewed hope. And we do it with community and with ritual. Thus it is now, and thus it has always been. However you celebrate and observe it, do have a Happy New Year
Sunday, January 7 the Delawre Veterans Post; 129 Pear st; Dover, DE The second and final fundraiser for our trip to the Mephis IBC is January 7th at “Delaware Veterans Post #2”; 129 Pear Street, Dover, DE. It runs from noon until 5PM. There will be great live music provided by some of the best blues artists around including Roger Girke, Jimmy Pritchard, Harmonica Slim, Diamond Jim Greene, and The Johns. For more info go to
And if you can’t
make the concert but still want to donate, there is a “Donate” button
at that link. Thank you all so much. It is a joy to play for and to represent you folks!
