The New Year’s Eve Ball descends from a pole above Times Square in New York City at 11:59 PM on New Year’s Eve. The New Year’s Eve Ball was first used to mark the new year in Times Square in 1907, though the practice of “dropping” balls to signal the passage of time is an older one. One of the most notable examples was installed in 1833 at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, dropping daily at 1:00 PM in order to communicate the time to passing ships.