The Times Tower at Times Square

Every year for the last 100 years, an illuminated Waterford crystal ball has droped in New York City’s Times Square to celebrate the beginning of a new year. Did you ever wonder about the building from which the ball is dropped? Today, one can't enjoy the beauty of the architecture due to all of the advertising signs which completely covers the building. Infocus Tech sells a metal souvenir replica of The New York Times Building, now also known as both 1 Times Square and the Times Tower. This pewter replica stands 5-1/2 inches tall and is finished in antique pewter. Located at the heart of Times Square, 42nd and Broadway, the 25-story building was completed in 1905, this skyscraper was designed by Architects Eidlitz and Mackenzie. The building is currently used as a enormous billboard for various advertising and is unoccupied from the 3rd floor up. A million people gather to celebrate on New Year’s Eve in Times Square as the ball descends 77 feet (23 meters) over the course of a minute, coming to rest at the bottom of its pole at 12:00am. The Ball Drop stems from an old ritual in England when a descending Time Ball was a popular method of signaling noon to allow pocket watches and nearby at sea ships chronometer's to be reset daily. This tradition continues onward today in Washington D.C. at the United States Naval Observatory where it still drops a Time Ball down a flag pole every day at noon. The latest design of the New York's Time Ball is six feet in diameter and weighs 1,070 pounds. The spherical design is a geodesic dome covered with 504 Waterford crystal triangles and illuminated with 600 multi-colored light bulbs, 96 high intensity strobe lights and 92 rotating pyramid mirrors.