{"id":91575,"date":"2021-01-01T07:47:53","date_gmt":"2021-01-01T12:47:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=91575"},"modified":"2021-01-01T07:47:53","modified_gmt":"2021-01-01T12:47:53","slug":"auto-draft-404","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2021\/01\/01\/auto-draft-404\/","title":{"rendered":"NY’s Times Square Revelry on New Year’s Eve Replaced by … Nothing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"VOA \u2014 NEW YORK – Gone were the revelry and shoulder-to-shoulder crowds that typify Times Square on New Year’s Eve, replaced by empty streets and an eerie quiet as the final hours of 2020 ticked away.<\/p>\n

This was New Year’s Eve in the age of COVID-19.<\/p>\n

Crowd control gave way to crowd prevention, as police closed the Crossroads of the World to vehicles and onlookers hoping to catch a glimpse of the glittering, crystal ball set to descend down a pole to mark the stroke of midnight. Would-be partygoers were urged to watch the ball drop on television.<\/p>\n

Preparing for the worst, the New York Police Department deployed its bomb-sniffing dogs and sand-filled sanitation trucks intended to guard against explosions. But the department’s playbook included an unusual mandate this year: preventing crowds of any size from gathering in Times Square.<\/p>\n

“It makes me a little bit sad,” said Cole Zieser, who recently moved to New York City. “It’s just not going to be what we wanted, what everyone dreams about in New York.”<\/p>\n

The coronavirus has upended public life for months, and New Year’s Eve proved no different for a city that’s counted more than 25,000 deaths because of the virus. The blocks surrounding the ball drop were blocked off, leaving a scene that Police Commissioner Dermot Shea described as surreal.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>
A woman wearing a protective mask takes a photo outside Times Square during the virtual New Year’s Eve event following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, Dec. 31, 2020.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“It’s dead,” said Ali Jameel, who owns a store a block from Times Square. “We are dreaming for it to come back again like before.”<\/p>\n

Despite the restrictions, Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed that New Year’s Eve “would be a joyous night, if ever there was one. Goodbye, 2020. Here comes something better: 2021.”<\/p>\n

The NYPD announced a two-part freeze that became more expansive at 3 p.m. Even guests at five hotels in the area were told to stay inside.<\/p>\n

Juanita Holmes, chief of patrol for the NYPD, urged people to ring in 2021 “from the comfort of your home.”<\/p>\n

“Coming to Times Square is a family tradition for some. It is a bucket list item for others. But this year is different,” she said. “I can’t emphasize enough how important it is for everyone to stay home.”<\/p>\n

The police department still rolled out heavy weapons teams, explosive-sniffing dogs, drones and sand trucks. But it also planned a drastically scaled-back presence in Times Square, including an 80% reduction in its typical workforce assigned to the area.<\/p>\n

“We always have to prepare for the worst in terms of counterterrorism overlays,” Shea said, “but the crowds will not be like they were in other years.”<\/p>\n

The event’s special guests, first responders and essential workers were expected to watch the festivities from a private, well-spaced area.<\/p>\n

“It’s almost like a ‘Seinfeld’ episode,” Shea said, invoking the 1990s “show about nothing.”<\/p>\n

“This is a ball drop about nothing, where you can’t see,” he said, “so you may as well stay home.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOA \u2014 NEW YORK – Gone were the revelry and shoulder-to-shoulder crowds that typify Times Square on New Year’s Eve, replaced by empty streets and an eerie quiet as the final hours of 2020 ticked away. This was New Year’s Eve in the age of COVID-19. Crowd control gave way to crowd prevention, as police […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":91576,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latests"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91575"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91578,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91575\/revisions\/91578"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}