NEW YORK (AP) – Thick crowds of revelers packed Times Square in the hours before the midnight ball drop, resolving to celebrate New Year’s Eve with gusto and optimism, despite a year filled with headlines of extremist attacks and a heavy security presence.
Partygoers hailing from around the world began arriving in the famed Manhattan crossroads before dawn, awaiting an evening of pop star performances that culminates with a countdown and the descent of an 11,875-pound Waterford crystal ball to welcome the New Year to the nation’s largest city.
An estimated 1 million people were expected at the celebration, protected by an armada of 6,000 police officers – some in civilian clothes, many heavily armed – as well as rigid security screenings.
Some in the crowd admitted to being nervous to gather in such a famous location in the weeks after the Paris and San Bernardino attacks. Just hours earlier Thursday, an ex-con was charged in upstate New York with planning to carry out a New Year’s Eve attack at a bar to prove he was worthy of joining the Islamic State terror group.
Ashley Watters, 18, a freshman at Temple University hailing from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, called the threat of terrorism “the elephant in the room.”