Revelers celebrate New Year 2025 in Times Square in New York on January 1, 2025 (AFP / Yuki IWAMURA)
Despite the storm and the freezing rain in New York, tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of revelers embraced each other at midnight sharp Tuesday evening in the iconic Times Square, happy to celebrate “once in a lifetime” the New Year in the legendary American multicultural megalopolis.
The transition to the new year in the “Big Apple” has taken place since 1907 at this crossroads in the heart of Manhattan, at the intersection of Broadway and 42nd Street, illuminated day and night by the signs of theaters, music halls and advertising screens digital giants, carving out the legend of “the city that never sleeps”.
“I really wanted to live this experience. In New York, it's once in a lifetime,” said Jennifer Martinez at noon on Tuesday, originally from the Dominican Republic but who lives on the immense island of Long Island to the east of Manhattan.
Similarly, Elizabeth Anderson, a 32-year-old Mexican tourist who lives in Australia, arrived around ten hours before the clock struck 12 in Times Square, which was already packed.
Happy with her “third trip to New York”, the city where she met her husband “11 years ago”. New Year's Eve in Times Square is “on the list of things to do before you die,” she proclaimed.
– Times Square Ball –
The compact crowd had their eyes glued to the highlight of the annual spectacle: the famous descent of the Times Square ball.
At 11:59 p.m. (04:59 GMT), New York Mayor Eric Adams triggered a 60-second countdown to lower an illuminated, crystal-covered geodesic sphere measuring 3.5 meters from a 20-meter pylon. in diameter and weighing more than five tons.
A couple kisses to celebrate the New Year in Times Square, in New York, January 1, 2025. (AFP / Yuki IWAMURA)
At midnight sharp, the ball went out, giving way to a brief fireworks display to the cheers, kisses and hugs of ecstatic revelers.
Dozens of couples kissed in front of cameras around the world.
Then, as tradition dictates, more than 1.3 tonnes of confetti carrying wishes for the New Year were thrown from the roofs of the buildings surrounding the world-famous crossroads.
Then, the famous classics “New York, New York” by Frank Sinatra and “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong sounded.
Every December 31, from noon, the colorful and musical event attracts New Yorkers, American and foreign tourists gathered by the tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands.
– Trump victory –
The chief of the New York police (NYPD), Jessica Tisch, had even mentioned in the press an expected million people, supervised by a “huge number of police officers” due to a tense geopolitical climate since the attack on the 7 October 2023 and the war between Israel and Hamas.
But even after an electric presidential campaign that saw the resounding victory of conservative Republican Donald Trump, police have ruled out any “credible threat” in New York, a progressive Democratic stronghold.
“A lot of people told me ‘don’t go there, it’s crowded’,” said Ruchit Patel, who came from India. “I grew up watching it on TV. I wanted to experience it in person,” exclaimed the 30-year-old.
A fireworks display lights up the Statue of Liberty in New York on January 1, 2025 (AFP / CHARLY TRIBALLEAU)
The last parties in Times Square were, however, spoiled in a city brought to its knees by the Covid pandemic in 2020-2021 and affected since 2022 by a crazy increase in the prices of bars, restaurants and hotels.
New Year's Eve 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 took place in Times Square almost empty, then limited to 15,000 masked and vaccinated people.
And during the transition from 2022 to 2023, a 19-year-old American attacked police officers with a machete. He was sentenced last May to 27 years in prison for “attempted assassination of American agents in the name of jihadism”, according to the courts.
Nothing to scare Norquan Tirick Goldson, a New Yorker based in California: “What could be better than starting the new year with strangers from all over the world!”
At midnight, in the south of Manhattan, once the rain had stopped, the city offered a fireworks display which lit up the legendary Statue of Liberty.
