A large crowd is expected to return to Times Square to welcome in the New Year, after the beginning of 2021 was celebrated in a low-key, sparsely attended affair, Mayor Bill de Blasio all but announced Monday.
During his daily press briefing, the mayor revealed that full details on COVID-19 precautionary measures like masking and proof of vaccination rules for the New Year’s Eve celebration will be announced Tuesday, but declared the festivities ringing in 2022 would be “large” and “wonderful.”
“We want to have a great New Year’s Eve celebration in this city. This city has been through so much, but this has been a heroic city fighting through COVID. We’re turning the corner. We got a lot to celebrate,” he said during the virtual news conference, held in Brooklyn Borough Hall. “So it’s going to be a big moment in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.
“We expect a large, wonderful celebration. We’re going to have some clear, smart rules to keep everyone safe,” de Blasio added. “Expect a great moment in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.”
This past year’s mostly virtual new year celebration was the first annual event since 1907 without a massive amount of in-person spectators who gather at Manhattan’s Crossroads of the World. Just a few hundred people came to Times Square, which on the final day of 2020 turned into a ghost town as officials closed off the area where the ball drops.