Things get rolling pretty early in Times Square on New Year’s
Eve. For a moment there, I was worried we were going to miss it: locked out of
the area, forced to celebrate New Year’s Eve somewhere else, possibly somewhere
depressing and lame like back at the hotel.
As I was making my way back to the hotel to get ready for New
Year’s Eve, my taxi passed through Times Square where I saw there were people already
staking out a place for the night. They were announcing that they were closing
the streets to traffic at three to set up pens for people – people who were
already queued to get in to spend the rest of the day waiting in a pen. This
was only just after two!
My goodness, I wasn’t expecting people to be there so early.
We freshened up quickly at the hotel and walked over to Times Square;
thankfully the hotel was just a block away. Hoping to find a place, we were corralled
right out of Times Square by the NYPD so they could sweep and secure the area
before letting people back in. That’s when we noticed the thousands of people
already queued to get back in.
I had this sinking feeling as we walked up a side street
looking for a queue to get back in. It was a depressed feeling like we had come
all the way to NYC just to spend New Year’s Eve in Times Square, and we missed
our chance. And not only that, but we had no back up plans. There was a worry
for a couple blocks as we waited to discover our fate.
Then we came upon our first side street that looked like it
was going to let people queue. There was a huge crowd of people waiting at the
end of the street outside a fence, so this looked to be our most promising
prospect. We waited for what felt like forever, jammed in a serious crowd of
people without really knowing if this was a line and we were getting in to
Times Square, of if we were in the wrong place.
Eventually, the gate opened, and with a crowd of people
pushing and shoving, rushing to get through the gate, we were in. Not in Times
Square, but in what turned out to be a queue: a fenced off area on a side
street leading into Times Square. It seemed like progress, but nobody was
telling us anything, so there was no actual confirmation this queue was
actually a queue, or that we would actually get in to Times Square.
There were so many people squeezed together in this crowd,
pressed up against each other, trying to endure this uncomfortable situation
for hopefully not much longer. We were in this queue, fenced in this packed
crowd for a couple of hours as it turned out. There were some funny people in the
crowd though, like one girl who, after the crowd shifted a little with a few
people brushing up against her, she turns to her friend to report “I think I’ve
just been impregnated.” A guy looked like he was not enjoying himself at all
while his girlfriend looked up looking as sweet as she could look, assuring him
that it’s once in a lifetime.
Thoughts ran through our heads, like what if the NYPD were
containing us here because this was an overflow area for Times Square for people
who weren’t early enough to actually get in the square but still wanted to be
close. What if this was where we were going to spend New Year’s Eve? Crammed
in, squished by strangers invading our personal space; uncomfortable, already
tired, and with no view of anything!
Thankfully, the fence eventually opened and the crowd made a
dash, pushing and throwing elbows, heading to Times Square. Police yelled for
people to slow down, but most people ran anyways. When we came out from the side
street and rounded the corner, we were corralled into another pen: our final
destination for the night. Another pen in a long series of pens fencing people
in all the way down Seventh Avenue to the famous ball, pens that continued for
blocks north of our sport as well.
As we were stuck in the middle of the crowd in the pen,
squished as people pushed to get closer, we tried to maintain what were
referred to as our bubble: a small area of space in the middle of us that we
stood in a circle around to protect. This was the only personal space we could
get. For a while, anytime the crowd shifted, we’d remind each other to “maintain
the bubble.” Any slack given, and the space was gone for good. We fought to
hold our space, thinking we’d need it to keep from losing our mind in the
crowd.
Then, there was a countdown, a warm-up of sorts. The crowd
got into it, there were brief fireworks. On the hour, every hour, they’d count
down to the hour, and then announce how many more hours to go until midnight.
Wow, at this point there were still seven hours to go! We were still committed
to seeing this through, but it sure set in just how much time there was to go. I
also realized that I skipped breakfast on my way to go see the Statue of
Liberty that morning, and in our rush to get from the hotel to Times Square we
skipped lunch.
Things were looking dim: we were hungry, growing tired, losing
our battle to maintain a bubble of personal space, and already grown sick of
the crowds of people. Then we spotted how empty it was at the back of the pen,
just a hundred feet back. With everyone pushing, trying futilely to get closer
to the ball that was well beyond our pen anyways, they left a huge gap at the
back of the pen. Finally some comfortable space!
After a few hours, we finally managed to flag down one of
the guys selling pizza up and down the sidewalk to people in the pens. We got a
small pizza each, and scarfed it down in just a couple bites. We didn’t get any
coffee or any other drinks they were selling, because there are no washrooms in
our pen. You can leave the pen to go to the washroom, but there’s no guarantee that
you’ll be allowed back in. In fact, it seemed like only one in three actually
made it back. We saw one couple where the guy was ringing in the New Year on
the phone with his girlfriend who had left to use the washroom and didn’t make
it back.
As the hours passed, we amused ourselves people watching. I’m
pretty imaginative, and started coming up with backstories for some people.
Particularly for one guy who was pretty active mingling in the crowd, I eventually
came up with the idea that he was probably from Homeland Security and was
undercover in the crowd to feel everyone out. There were other interesting
characters too, and people who resembled TV characters. There were also
interesting police personalities as they patrolled around the pen. All mildly amusing
enough to keep us slightly entertained while the hours passed.
Then the moment we waited for: the ultimate countdown. After
hours of warm-up countdowns that taunted us with how many hours were left, it
was not time. We made it to the countdown to midnight in Times Square on New
Year’s Eve! Thousands and thousands of people yelling out the countdown, watching
the clock, seeing the ball drop, seeing the fireworks, and finally yelling out
with the crowd in Times Square, “Happy New Year!”
It was 2011, we had done it. We experienced New Year’s Eve
in Times Square. And after keeping the crowd contained in pens for hours that
day, within a minute into 2011 people were going every direction, jumping
rails, going everywhere to get out of there. After the police keep everyone so
contained all day, at 12:01 it didn’t matter where you went as long as you got
the hell out of Times Square. And we did.
We finally made it back to the hotel, where we had champagne
waiting. Thankfully I planned ahead enough to fill the bathroom sink full of
ice and leave the bottles in that. This is my previous excessive travel
experiences coming in handy. There they were, all chilled and ready for us to
toast in the New Year! We had some premium champagne, and it was delicious.
Happy New Year, indeed!
