But that begs the inevitable question: When was the transition to the countdown ball we know today?
I dug deep into the digital archive of DailyExpertNews and came to the conclusion that it happened on December 31, 1938.
The ball that fell on December 31, 1937, was similar to the one in 1907. “As the lighted ball fell from the staff on the Times Building at the time of midnight, a roar of voices and horns went up,” The Times reported on January 1, 1908.
The fall of 1938 was different. Again, from The Times: “At exactly three seconds to midnight, Thomas Ward, electrician who first served ‘dropping the ball’ in 1914, celebrated his silver jubilee at his high post atop the Times Building by a switch he let the ball-studded globe slide down the fifty-foot-tall flagpole. It was exactly midnight when it reached the base.” The article added that Ward then flipped another switch to lighten up the numbers for the new year – 1,9,3 and 9.
The following year, the drop was extended to five seconds. In the end, of course, it would be 60 seconds.
Perhaps the change in 1938 went unnoticed because there were more newsworthy attractions to report that night. The opening of the 1939 World’s Fair was only four months away, and the fair’s publicity machine had pulled a stunt: the “Girl of Tomorrow”—Gladys Bensen, 18, of Jamaica, Queens—climbed out of a miniature “Perisphere,” the giant white sphere which, combined with the elongated pyramidal “Trylon”, was a symbol of the fair.
The forward-looking fair is said to predict lasting changes in technology, fashion and lifestyle. But in a small way, the world had already changed when Ward flipped his switch. The ball drop in Times Square on New Year’s Eve would never be the same.