It's the Brian Laird show on WNYC. I'm producer Amina Serna filling in for Brian today. Welcome back, everyone.

Now we continue our WNYC Centennial series, 100 Years of 100 Things.

And today, we are up to Thing Number 53. It's 100 years of celebrating the new year in Times Square, which includes looking at some of the changes in Times Square, especially the more recent ones.

We're joined for this by Katie Thornton,

a Peabody winning journalist and public historian. You might remember her from the series

Divided Dial on the media. Her most recent work is a history of Times Square for the podcast,

99% Invisible, that came out on Christmas Eve. Welcome back, Katie. Hi, Amina. Thank you so much.

Great to be here. And listeners, we want to hear from you. People travel all over and endure all

kinds of weather and rules to celebrate New Year's in Times Square. If that's how you welcome the

new year, let us know about your experience, especially if you've been doing it over the years and can talk about how the experience has changed.

Call or text at 212-433 W-NYC, that's 212-433-9692.

Do you have or have you heard stories from your family or friends of New Year's in Times Square before the 90s?

How does it compare to recent celebrations? And if you live in Times Square, what's it like having this massive party in your backyard?

Call or text at 212-433 W-NYC.

That's 212-433-9692.

Katie, celebrating New Year's in Times Square has been going on for longer than 100 years, right?

It has. Yeah, you know, the first sort of official New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square started in 1904, which for any Times Square buffs out there was a really big year for Times Square. That was the year that the subway came to the neighborhood. That was the year that it got the name Times because the New York Times moved into the neighborhood earlier in 1904 and petitioned

the city for a name change, just like the Harold had done with Harold Square years prior.

And so 1904 was really sort of the inaugural year for the New Year's celebration.

The New York Times put on the festivities with a large display of fireworks and dynamite, much different from what we would see today.

And I understand the ball drop started in 1907.

The ball drop.

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