Times Square ball being prepared for New Year's Eve
NEW YORK CITY -- The ball that will help ring in 2009 is getting ready for its close-up. Workers in Times Square are installing more than 2,600 Waterford Crystal triangles on the NEW New Year's ball.
Because the ball itself is twice the size of last year's, Waterford had to make about four times as many crystal triangles for the exterior this time around.
A spokesperson for Waterford Crystal explains how, in 1999, the company began a durable sculpture to "show off" year-round.
To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.
Then come back here and refresh the page.
"Of course in those days, we were only worried about one night for 60 seconds to come down the pole. Now we're concerned with 365 days a year, 24-7, so we continued our testing this year, to ensure the crystal would perform. We did more wind tunnel testing, we did more computer simulating. And, we got a clean bill of health from our engineers saying 'we are ready to do this year round’,” said Pete Cheyney, Director of Corporate Communications for Waterford Crystal.
The "wind-tunnel" testing he's referring to includes winds of 140 miles-per hour.