Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Today we’ll look at how New Year’s Eve in Times Square started with The New York Times. We’ll also get details on the Trump administration’s decision to halt construction of five offshore wind farms, two of them in the waters off New York.
In eight days, a ritual will be repeated — a ritual that began with The New York Times: New Year’s Eve in Times Square. It’s different now. There was no ball drop the first year, as 1904 gave way to 1905. The Times shot fireworks from the roof of its new building, in the triangle between Broadway and Seventh Avenue. The newspaper switched on a display of flashing electric lights the next year, and, according to a front-page article, “the hysterical crowd below became, if possible, still more hysterical.” For 1907, The Times put a pole atop the building and began the tradition of the ball drop. This time around, there will be a reminder that The Times played a role in making New Year’s Eve what it is, just as the news organization reports on the events that make the world what it is. With The Times set to celebrate its 175th anniversary in 2026, the publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, will begin a yearlong look at the importance of its independent reporting. He will appear on a Dec. 31 webcast from the Times Square Alliance, the business improvement district for the area, which is now an organizer of New Year’s Eve in Times Square. A video highlighting The Times’s reporting and its history with New Year’s Eve will also be shown. On the moveThe night of that first celebration, The Times was moving to Times Square. It was still printing newspapers on Park Row in Lower Manhattan. The issue of Jan. 1, 1905 — with an image of The Times’s tower and the numerals “1905” at the top — was the last to come off the presses there. When they shut down, 15 trucks rolled up Broadway, loaded with machinery that had to be reassembled in the Times Square building in time for the next night’s press run, for the paper’s 17,160th issue. The new building had been “the focus of an unprecedented New Year’s Eve celebration,” according to the Times Square Alliance. The Times’s publisher, Adolph Ochs, “spared no expense to ensure a party for the ages.” After an all-day street festival, some 200,000 people oohed and aahed at the fireworks. And then the movers went to work. “Days and nights had been devoted to the preparation,” The Times said. Some of the linotype machines — the clattering, unwieldy machines that set the type in those days — were disassembled as soon as the last sentence of copy for Jan. 1 was set. The desks from the newsroom were also packed and loaded for the ride to Times Square, along with the reporters’ typewriters.
The linotypes were put back together, the typewriters were put on the desks, The Times came out on schedule on Jan. 2 — and eventually the paper moved around the corner, to a building on West 43rd Street. It sold the tower in Times Square in the 1960s. The original New Year’s Eve ball no longer exists, and the building, now known as One Times Square, has undergone a $550 million makeover. Jamestown, the real estate firm that owns it, made a replica of the ball for a display there. The one that will drop next week is new, with 5,280 crystals and LED light “pucks,” nearly twice as many as on the ball that was retired in January. This morning, the numerals for 2026 — two 2s, a zero and a 6 — will be moved from the plaza on Broadway between 46th and 47th Streets, where for the last few days people could pose in front of them and snap selfies. The numerals will take their place atop One Times Square on Friday.
WEATHER Snow is expected in the early morning and into the afternoon, followed by a chance of rain. Highs will be around 40 degrees. Temperatures are not expected to decrease by much in the evening, with a low of 39. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Thursday (Christmas). The latest Metro news
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The Interior Department escalated the Trump administration’s push against the offshore wind industry, saying that five projects off the East Coast posed “national security concerns.” Two of the five are under construction in waters off New York — Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind. Orsted, the Danish energy giant that is building Sunrise Wind, said it was weighing its options. Sunrise had been set to start generating electricity in 2026. Equinor, the Norwegian developer behind Empire Wind, said that “without a swift solution” there could be “significant impact to the project.” Equinor said on its website last week that its South Brooklyn Marine Terminal would be ready for the delivery of turbine components next year. Both companies said they had coordinated with the relevant federal agencies on national security reviews. Kris Ohleth, the director of the nonprofit Special Initiative on Offshore Wind, said that national security was a nonissue. “These projects are all sited outside of areas that would have any significant impact on military installations or other assets of national security,” she said, calling the stop-work orders a “baseless and meritless attack on the offshore wind industry.” As my colleagues Maxine Joselow and Lisa Friedman noted, Empire Wind has had an on-again, off-again relationship with the administration. In April, the Interior Department ordered a stop to construction on Empire Wind, pushing the project to the brink of collapse. After several weeks and negotiations with Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, the administration relented and let work on Empire Wind resume. Hochul said on Monday that she had not seen “this broadside attack coming.” She said in Albany that she had recently discussed broader energy issues with President Trump, including nuclear power but not wind. She said that New York was working with other states “to review every available option to get these projects back on track.” “The Trump administration will look for any excuse to continue its assault on clean energy,” Hochul wrote on X. She said there was “no credible justification” for halting the wind projects and added, “The real threat to national security is undermining our energy independence.” METROPOLITAN DIARY Taste test
Dear Diary: The day after Thanksgiving, a question arose: What does one eat next? For a family ranging in age from 8 to 80, keeping a festive mood through the weekend required a new idea. Someone suggested a blind taste test of Upper West Side pizzas. Soon, ballots were printed and categories debated: sauce, crust, mouth feel, overall taste. Three pies lined the kitchen counter. When the votes were tallied, the winner came from a spot near 105th Street and Broadway. There were leftovers, and the three youngest members of the group and their aunt carried one box back to their apartment. At West End Avenue and 70th Street, they were stopped by a sanitation truck. The driver got out and smiled. “What’s the best pizza around here?” he asked. “We actually just decided,” one of the kids said. They explained their ranking system and even offered the man a slice. He shook his head, laughing. “We see a lot of different pizza boxes in the garbage,” he said. “We were hoping for a local opinion. Middle of the shift, we get hungry out here.” He climbed back into the truck, waved and drove off. — Naomi Malka Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Lauren Hard and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
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