NEW YORK – It’s the biggest public party in the country. Nearly a million revelers will cram into the streets of Times Square 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 confetti-filled streets 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 specifically 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. Haz-mat teams are on standby.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Thursday that there are no “specific threats against the city” on New Year’s Eve. The 20-inch snowstorm that left the streets far from Times Square unplowed will be a memory to the crowd. Crews have removed the large drifts and warm temperatures are helping to melt what’s left.

NYPD brass tweak their security plan every year, using lessons learned from previous scares like the botched Times Square car bombing in May and the attempted bombing of a Christmas tree lighting in Portland, Ore., near Thanksgiving. NYPD counterterrorism chief James Waters mined information on the suicide bombing this month in Stockholm, Sweden.”

People have gathered for a century in Times Square to ring in the New Year, but it hasn’t always been a family-friendly affair.

In the early 1990s, before the redevelopment of the bowtie collection of streets at Broadway and Seventh Avenue, the area was overrun with crime and home to sex shops and peep shows.

Revelers would gather with plenty of liquor as shopkeepers boarded up their windows with plywood for the night, hoping no one would smash through. Longtime residents say it was a boozy, drunken mess.

 

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