This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. New Year's Eve is just around the corner. And whether

you love it or hate it, you are probably putting more thought into what you'll be doing that night

than any other night of the year. I'm not much of a New Year's Eve person myself. Best reporter

Katie Thornton.

Listen, I like parties.

I like dancing.

But there's just too much pressure on New Year's Eve.

You want me to set the tone for my whole year in one night of obligatory fun?

And yet, despite my crankiness, I do have one New Year's guilty pleasure, something about it that I do love.

And it is the most New Year's-E of all New Year's rituals, the massive confetti-filled extravaganza that is New Year's Eve in Times Square.

Every year, I see footage of the celebration, almost despite myself I end up tearing up.

There's all these people piled together, smiling, waving, full of hope for the future,

and inexplicably stoked about a glorified disco ball getting slowly impaled on the spit of one-time square.

And then everybody makes out and Ryan Seacrest is there? Bonus.

But one of the most iconic parts the whole celebration happens after the clock strikes midnight and the fireworks go off,

when the massive crowd bursts into New York, New York.

I think this is the big reason it hits me so hard, despite not being a New Year's Eve fan.

It's that Times Square,

especially on New Year's, is almost mythologically New York. Times Square is the neighborhood of brilliant signs, skyscrapers, and hot dog carts. It's got cavalier office workers breezing

past ambling tourists without breaking their important sounding phone conversations. Basically, it's a caricature, the movie version of New York.

Over 100 million people come to Times Square every year to take a bite out of the Big Apple.

And the neighborhood is consistently one of the top tourist destinations in the world.

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