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Times Square prepares for New Year's Eve party
Source: Agencies |
December 31, 2010, Friday
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IT'S the biggest public party in the United States. Nearly 1 million revelers will cram the streets of New York's Times Square today to watch the ball drop on New Year's Eve.
It's also remarkably crime-free, safe and orderly. In the past decade, there have been few arrests and virtually no major problems funneling people in and out of the area to ring in the New Year.
That's due mostly to what the partygoers don't notice: Throngs of police and counterterrorism officers blanketing the area, working from a security plan tailored for the event.
Manhole covers are sealed. Counter-snipers are stationed on secret rooftops. Officers carry beeper-sized radiation detectors. Plainclothes officers are stationed in the pens with the crowds, along with a uniformed presence and undercover officers. Bomb-sniffing dogs are on site. Purses are searched. Checkpoints are set up and perimeters are created using concrete blocks. Passing vehicles are checked for safety.
New York Police Department officials tweak the plan every year, using lessons learned from previous scares like the botched Times Square car bombing in May. NYPD counterterrorism chief James Waters mined information on the suicide bombing this month in Sweden.
"Intelligence informs a lot of what we do," Waters said. "Understanding the threat, always the basics, understanding what the threat is against New York, what's the threat against the country, and everything that comes behind that."
People have gathered for a century in Times Square to ring in the New Year, but it hasn't always been a family affair. In the early 1990s, the area was overrun with crime and home to sex shops and peep shows. Longtime residents say it was a boozy mess.
But Disney, upscale hotels, theme stores and restaurants arrived in the mid-1990s and changed the feel of the area, drawing a softer crowd.
After September 11, 2001, "we added a counterterrorism overlay," said Paul Browne, the NYPD's deputy commissioner for public information. "We have kept changing it based on the needs ever since."
After the clock strikes 12, the crowd disperses. It's like pulling the plug in a bathtub, with people fanning out to party elsewhere.
It's also remarkably crime-free, safe and orderly. In the past decade, there have been few arrests and virtually no major problems funneling people in and out of the area to ring in the New Year.
That's due mostly to what the partygoers don't notice: Throngs of police and counterterrorism officers blanketing the area, working from a security plan tailored for the event.
Manhole covers are sealed. Counter-snipers are stationed on secret rooftops. Officers carry beeper-sized radiation detectors. Plainclothes officers are stationed in the pens with the crowds, along with a uniformed presence and undercover officers. Bomb-sniffing dogs are on site. Purses are searched. Checkpoints are set up and perimeters are created using concrete blocks. Passing vehicles are checked for safety.
New York Police Department officials tweak the plan every year, using lessons learned from previous scares like the botched Times Square car bombing in May. NYPD counterterrorism chief James Waters mined information on the suicide bombing this month in Sweden.
"Intelligence informs a lot of what we do," Waters said. "Understanding the threat, always the basics, understanding what the threat is against New York, what's the threat against the country, and everything that comes behind that."
People have gathered for a century in Times Square to ring in the New Year, but it hasn't always been a family affair. In the early 1990s, the area was overrun with crime and home to sex shops and peep shows. Longtime residents say it was a boozy mess.
But Disney, upscale hotels, theme stores and restaurants arrived in the mid-1990s and changed the feel of the area, drawing a softer crowd.
After September 11, 2001, "we added a counterterrorism overlay," said Paul Browne, the NYPD's deputy commissioner for public information. "We have kept changing it based on the needs ever since."
After the clock strikes 12, the crowd disperses. It's like pulling the plug in a bathtub, with people fanning out to party elsewhere.
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