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New Year’s revelers celebrate in Times Square hours before New Orleans mass killing
Thrilled revelers embraced one another as the Big Apple entered 2025 to the tune of Frank Sinatra’s New York New York with a blizzard of confetti falling from surrounding skyscrapers. Hours later, the day turned into tragedy when a mass killing happened in New Orleans.
Tragedy struck at around 3 a.m. in New Orleans when a car slammed into a crowd on Bourbon Street, killing 10 and injuring at least 30 more, officials said. The suspect acted with “very intentional behavior,” and even fired a gun at officers after he crashed his vehicle, police said in a Wednesday morning press conference.
“He was hellbent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did,” police said of the suspect, who has not been identified. The FBI has taken over the case and confirmed that an improvised explosive device was found at the scene. Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry has described it as a “horrific act of violence” and urged “all near the scene to avoid the area.”
Miles away in New York, close to a million happy people packed Times Square Tuesday night to watch the ball drop on New Year’s Eve as well as performances by Rita Ora and Carrie Underwood, among several others.
The weather was mild before the rain began to fall in New York as crowds poured into the square, with one reveler telling CBS News he had arrived at 6 a.m. to get a good view of the ball drop.
“We just came from Japan all the way here just to see this, just to feel the crowd,” another told the network.
The ball drop, which began 114 years ago, featured a 12,000-pound ball made of 2,500 chrystals.
New Year’s Eve in Times Square is one of the most significant challenges for the New York Police Department, which, along with state and federal agencies, monitored the area with more than 70,000 cameras, roadblocks, heavy trucks, and drones.
“We have plainclothes teams and K-9 teams, and officers on horsebacks and in helicopters and on boats,” Mayor Eric Adams said ahead of the festivities.
By the time the ball dropped in New York, it had already been a new year for hours in areas such as New Zealand, Hong Kong, Australia, and Europe, where fireworks lit up the skies.
The NYPD noted that there was no credible security threat at Times Square, even as hundreds of officers were gathered to keep an eye on the crowd while looking out from buildings around the area as well as from atop buildings.
Restaurants, such as Applebee’s, Olive Garden, and Dave and Buster’s, around Times Square, offered a view of the ball drop where revelers don’t have to spend hours jostling amid the crowd in a bathroom-free area. Some are avoiding liquids or using adult diapers to get through the evening. But avoiding that while still seeing the ball drop will cost you; a table at Applebee’s for the night will run you about $850, according to The New York Times.
Evan Lund traveled from Colorado to attend the New Year’s Eve event at Applebee’s in 2022 and 2023. Sharing his experience with Business Insider, he said: “I showed up an hour before the doors opened.” Outside, people wait for hours to hang onto a good spot.
Lund spent $2,500 on three tickets for the event.
“You get to stay inside, nice and warm and all that until you go to the party, so you don’t have to deal with all the other crazy stuff,” he added.
The ball drop has been a tradition since 1907 when the original ball of wood and iron made its way down the pole. Now watched by millions around the world, the tradition is still going strong.
Times Square has been the site of New Year’s celebrations in New York since 1904, the year the Square got its name when The New York Times moved into a building there. The paper’s owner, Adolph Ochs, held a celebration on New Year’s Eve that year to commemorate the opening of the paper’s new headquarters.
Two years into the new tradition, the city banned the fireworks display, prompting the ball drop to take its place.
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