New Year ’s Eve we headed into Manhattan to spend the afternoon before heading to time square. This was our first mistake. After a late lunch we headed for the closed off streets around 4pm. You are not permitted to bring anything in with you. So 8 hours of no food no drinks, all bags are searched. There are also no bathrooms. Once you make it through the police search the put you in what I can best describe as a corral that is about 100 by 100 feet square. Then there is a 20 foot gap and another corral.
We felt lucky to be one of the first few people in our Corral about 7 blocks from time square. As it turned out this was not good luck. Everyone in the back is pushing forward constantly to get those few inches closer to Time Square, like in the pit at a concert. You are allowed to leave at any time, but you can’t come back. As the afternoon rolls on every few hours they push everyone up by one or two corral.
After our first move we decided it was best to hang near the back of our corral because it was empty and you could take up some space and even sit or lay down, and there was still about 6 hours to midnight. This is also when we noticed the pizza and Krispy Kreme guys running down the streets selling food while trying not to get grabbed by the cops. If you hung out in the back corner on the corral you could hold out $10 and they would take it and toss you a box without stopping as they jogged by. Not only was it nice to get some food, but the box was great to sit on and keep you off the cool NY street.
We made it to about 5 blocks from Time Square by the time midnight hit. This was followed by confetti dropping from all the buildings and fireworks behind us from Central Park. Lots of kissing and yelling for about 10 minutes and then they let everyone out. As flooded at the streets were the subways were empty and we were able to make it back to Queens and join a New Year’s party at the bar below my friend’s apartment.
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