New Year’s Eve is a time for reflection, and the Covid Ball will be with us this year. John Trowbridge, who invented the iconic ball in 1944, claims it has been used to celebrate everything from World War II victory to 9/11.
The New Year’s Eve Ball Drop in Times Square is a Manhattan tradition that is seen by an estimated billion people throughout the globe. John Trowbridge, who oversees the sphere’s technological systems, is crucial to its success.
So this year, Mr. Trowbridge, who works at one of America’s busiest junctions, thought he couldn’t, shouldn’t, and wouldn’t be able to acquire Covid-19.
Influential sphere
He awaited daily test results to determine whether he had held off the virus and if he was still on the roof supervising the descent.
Mr. Trowbridge has spent the week leading up to New Year’s Eve in hotel rooms, spending 10-hour days installing and testing systems, changing components, and directing a staff of nine for the previous 25 years.
“When the ball moves, between 11:45 and 11:59,” he remarked, “the longest 15 minutes of my life are between 11:45 and 11:59.”
Mr. Trowbridge receives Covid tests every day now that the Omicron variety is sweeping New York City, he said. He claims that eleven of his acquaintances and contacts have tested positive.
Other team members have backups, but Mr. Trowbridge does not. According to Jeffrey Straus, president of Countdown Entertainment, which puts on the event alongside the charity Times Square Alliance, his expertise with the event makes him “very essential today.”
“The show must go on,” said Mr. Trowbridge, who works in the events industry. He’d gone out of his way to protect himself. When he returned to his hotel late at night, he walked in the street with traffic rather than on the crowded sidewalk. He donned KN95 masks and carried a five-pack with him at all times.
This year, he just had a tiny Christmas celebration with his mother and a few others. “Everyone has been vaccinated and boosted.” He said, “We maintained our distance from one other.” “When Mom arrived, she was greeted with an embrace, and when she departed, she was greeted with a hug.”
It was successful. Until a few days before the big event.
On Monday, Mr. Trowbridge was in the control room of the Times Square ball.
The Wall Street Journal / Isabelle Bousquette
Mr. Trowbridge said on Wednesday, “I have tested positive.”
Now, he, like millions of others across the globe, must find out how to execute his work from afar. Unless his test findings are incorrect, he’ll have to organize the ball drop—and watch it happen—from his hotel room, where he’s decamped from his New Jersey home, as he does every year.
“I’m good,” he remarked over the phone Wednesday from his hotel room. “I’m sure I’m in touch with everyone down there.” I’ve been bringing a radio around with me.”
Mr. Trowbridge’s remote supervision of his staff is “absolutely unique for us,” according to Mr. Straus, the event’s executive producer. “John’s tale is actually this narrative that’s occurring all over the place, not just here in Times Square.”
According to Mr. Straus, the drop began in 1907 and was inspired by a nautical practice in which ports dropped a “time ball” at noon to allow navigators to correct their ships’ chronometers. This year’s ball is the seventh generation, with a diameter of 12 feet and a weight of 11,875 pounds and 32,256 LEDs.
Mr. Trowbridge was hired to supervise the fall following a ball-drop disaster. Mr. Straus said the ball plummeted two seconds late at the conclusion of 1995, the first year computer controls replaced four people with ropes, one with a timer, and a supervisor.
Mr. Straus explained, “John came in the following year, and it’s been perfect ever since.”
The New Year’s Eve ball drop took place at Times Square on December 31, 1907.
Luiz Rampelotto/Zuma Press photo
Mr. Trowbridge’s New Jersey events company, The Wolf Productions—he named it after the fixer character played by Harvey Keitel in the film “Pulp Fiction,” and he is the only full-time employee—moves into the ball control room on the top floor of One Times Square, a largely empty 22-story building whose roof hosts the ball drop—moves into the ball control room on the top floor of One Times Square, a largely empty 22-story building whose
He arrives via a Walgreens store’s backdoor storage room on the ground level and takes a “restricted” elevator to his temporary workplace, a windowless industrial facility monitored by a single security guard.
He usually spends the week leading up to the drop examining the preprogrammed lighting system of the ball. He is in charge of the satellite receivers on the roof, which receive a timecode signal from the atomic clock at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Colorado.
On Dec. 31, he comes at 4:45 a.m. to oversee media activities, as is customary. He arrives at 6 p.m. to monitor the ball’s ascent up the pole. Mr. Straus and other notables join forces to activate the huge switch that starts the climb.
Mr. Straus said, “I look at John, and he counts me down, and I entirely rely on him to make sure I turn the switch at the proper moment.”
From the moment the ball is lifted at 6 p.m. until it is dropped at midnight, the satellite time signal is synchronized to the lighting system, which automates the changing colors and patterns on the ball. The signal is also synchronised to a control room display. Mr. Trowbridge generally mans the roof as midnight approaches, while his assistant, Torey Cates, monitors the display and pushes a button to commence the ball’s drop at 11:59 p.m.
Torey Cates, Mr. Trowbridge’s assistant, holds the button that will commence the ball drop.
The Wall Street Journal / Isabelle Bousquette
Mr. Cates will continue to press the button, according to Mr. Straus. “The ball is still going to drop,” Mr. Trowbridge said, whether he’s counting down from the rooftop of One Times Square or from a motel five minutes away.
Mr. Trowbridge has a backup radio battery on hand and is fully charging his smartphone so he can keep in contact with his crew, in whom he has “100% faith.”
According to him, the manual button and the absence of an internet connection are designed to prevent hackers or technological faults from dropping the ball. If all goes according to plan, Mr. Cates’ button-push will send the ball down 75 feet on two steel wires in precisely 60 seconds.
The numbers “2022” have replaced the “2021” on the top of One Time Square. The ball will go black after it has passed “2022,” the numerals will light up, and the audience below will ring in the new year.
Mr. Trowbridge said, “My job is to make sure the ball drops on time and everything looks beautiful.” “And that’s exactly what’s going to happen. And I’m going to do a fantastic job.”
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