Just An Observation - Why Do We Drop The Ball To Bring In A....

[global1]

New Year? Why don't we raise the ball up the poll instead of dropping the ball. Seems like a negative connotation to me.

[sakabatou]

1. Maybe it's more symbolic these days

Look how many people have "dropped the ball." :evilgrin:

[Birthmark]

2. There's a rather long story behind that.

I don't feel like explaining it. If you'll send me a PM about it, I'll explain in a day or three. Or maybe someone else will supply the answer on the thread.

[carolinalady]

3. food for thought-in Key West they drop a drag queen. n/t

[EST]

4. And here I thought it was symbolic of the outgoing year.

"We really dropped the ball on this one; God, can we please have another?

[Deja Q]

5. Because that would imply an erection. And our xian nation would blush over

that!

Our people have a little problem called "evocative dysfunction" anyway.

[Tigress DEM]

9. Oh, my!

Never thought of it THAT way before.


But now that we are in the gutter.... wouldn't a huge ball going slowly down a long shaft be well... a homoerotic type of symbol?

[ohio_liberal]

6. Here's a link

http://www.timessquarenyc.org/nye/nye_ball.html

Scroll down a bit and it tells about the tradition

[Mind_your_head]

7. A bit off topic (and not a direct question to you, necessarily)

Why do pictures from this era seem sooooooooo clear? You really don't see that now. And don't tell me about it being digitized, b/c this original film pic has been digitized, but the quality/clarity is really remarkable, do you see the difference too? WHY is that?

[blonndee]

8. Maybe it has to do with the black and white instead of color?

I'm sure someone far more knowledgable than I will respond, but I took a Photography class years ago and I seem to remember the instructor talking about how (relatively modern)B&Ws are usually clearer, AND will last a whole lot longer than color prints.

[MazeRat7]

10. I suspect this was shot using a large format film

basically something like a 5x7" 8x10" negative plate. The closer the negative is to the size of the desired print, there is less "loss" or "degradation" than when the picture must be enlarged from say a 35mm negative to an 8x10 or 5x7.

Thats the short answer anyway.

MZr7

[NYC]

11. Details re ball dropping:

About "Time-Balls"

The actual notion of a ball "dropping" to signal the passage of time dates back long before New Year's Eve was ever celebrated in Times Square. The first "time-ball" was installed atop England's Royal Observatory at Greenwich in 1833. This ball would drop at one o'clock every afternoon, allowing the captains of nearby ships to precisely set their chronometers (a vital navigational instrument).

Around 150 public time-balls are believed to have been installed around the world after the success at Greenwich, though few survive and still work. The tradition is carried on today in places like the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, DC, where a time-ball descends from a flagpole at noon each day - and of course, once a year in Times Square, where it marks the stroke of midnight not for a few ships' captains, but for over one billion people watching worldwide.