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A Donald Trump impersonator poses for photos in Times Square ahead of New Year’s Eve amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, USA. USA, December 31, 2020. REUTERS / Carlo Allegri
NEW YORK – Only a handful of guests, including healthcare workers and others from the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic, will gather Thursday night in New York’s Times Square to witness the New Year’s Eve ball being thrown. , which marks the end of a sobering 2020 and a hopeful start to 2021.
For decades, tens of thousands of revelers, many of them tourists, filled the blocks around Times Square on New Year’s Eve, standing for hours in the cold waiting to see a glowing crystal ball slide down a pole mounted on a skyscraper. in the year. final seconds. When the ball reaches the bottom, the crowd erupts in hugs, kisses and good humor.
But this year, Mayor Bill de Blasio and police officers have told New Yorkers and those living out of town to stay away and watch the festivities on television. A large contingent of police will barricade the area to prevent unauthorized people from gathering, with the aim of preventing an event that could accelerate the spread of the virus in a city that is already struggling to contain it.
Similarly, dozens of New Year’s Eve events in the United States have been reduced or moved online.
“It’s actually going to be possibly the most special New Year’s Eve, the most moving, the most moving,” De Blasio, who will press the button to initiate the crystal ball descent, told reporters. “In 2021, we will show people what it looks like to recover, to come back.”
Some people either didn’t get the message or decided to come to Times Square anyway, hoping to get an early look at the ball before police began clearing the square of anyone who wasn’t authorized to be there.
“It’s really sad to see such great anguish, but I wanted to be here because it’s my tradition,” said Matt Wozniak, a 41-year-old New Yorker who owns a construction company, explaining why he came to Times Square. Thursday morning. “I have been coming for many years, sometimes in a large crowd. Now it’s different, it feels different. “
The NYPD will allow only a few dozen people to see the ball drop at the so-called Crossroads of the World in downtown Manhattan. Organizers have invited a grocery store worker, a building doorman, a pizza delivery boy, and doctors and nurses, including Sandra Lindsay, the New York nurse who became the first recipient of a coronavirus vaccine. in the United States out of a trial earlier this month.
The masked guests, separated for security reasons, will gather in front of a temporary stage set up in the plaza to watch live performances by Bronx-born singer Jennifer Lopez and Gloria Gaynor, who will perform their classic album “I Will Survive.”
More than 25,000 New Yorkers have been killed by COVID-19 this year. In the spring, during the first days of the outbreak in the United States, the city emerged as the epicenter of the pandemic.
“New York is invincible, as is the world,” said Kathleen Mukameal, 62, a retired New Yorker now working as a voting rights activist, during a tour of the plaza. “We are celebrating all the good things and we have a lot to be thankful for despite this terrible situation we are enduring.”
As new daily case counts continue to rise in the United States, bars, restaurants, and other hangouts in New York City are closed or have very limited capacity.
In Las Vegas, Boston and beyond, official fireworks displays were canceled. Organizers of Boston’s annual First Night arts festival on New Year’s Eve have organized six hours of live performances streamed online by local musicians and artists.
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