The New York Times (January 1, 1943)
400,000 REVELERS FILL TIMES SQUARE IN DIM NEW YEAR’S
Chill of war felt as vast crowd toots sluggishly on old and second-hand horns; theaters are sold out
Allied fighting men, 40% of crowd, greeted by friendly New Yorkers
By Meyer Berger
New Year’s Eve in Times Square had a weird quality last night. A crowd of some 400,000, swelled by enormous numbers of teenage boys and girls, moved zombie-like through the dimness, blowing in melancholy fashion on old and second-hand horns.
There was a note of sluggishness, an absence of real gayety. The restless thousands lacked zest. War somehow laid its hand on the celebration and tended to mute it.
At midnight, the crowd watched in vain for the glowing white ball to slide down the flagstaff atop the New York Times Tower. Last night was the first New Year’s Eve since 1908 that no ball glowed to signal the death of the old year and the birth of the new.
Instead, silent bands of lights, from plane-spotter stations around the edge of the city, laid their beams across the cold and starry sky. This happened at the stroke of midnight.
The crowd stared in silence. It was a full three minutes before the import of the beams broke on the crowd’s consciousness. Then the din arose. The horns blew louder and the cowbells sent up their clatter.
From the great silver WNYC sound truck at Duffy Square, a deep-voiced announcer made himself heard above the din. He asked for ten seconds of silence as a token of respect for Americans serving overseas.
In the upper Square, where this message was distinct, the response was immediate. Men removed their hats and left off their horn-tooting. Women’s laughter suddenly stopped and quiet fell in the area.
Farther south though, where the crowds had overrun the streets despite the best efforts of mounted men, foot patrol and civilian defense auxiliaries, the message was not heard. The horns kept up their incessant blowing, the bells their clangor.
Soldiers and their women locked in embrace at street corners and in store doorways and held the pose for minutes with the crowd applauding. Some of these couples were caught in the beams of handlamps but didn’t seem to mind.
They left off when Lucy Monroe’s clear voice broke over the Square. She sang “The Star-Spangled Banner" and the crowd joined. The whole scene was a study in darkness with occasional flashlight bulbs piercing the gloom, though only briefly.
Veteran policemen remarked on the changed nature of the crowd. In previous years, celebrants were preponderantly persons in their late 20s and persons of middle age. Last night, there were many more youngsters, particularly groups of unescorted girls.
There was less drunkenness than in other years. The police handled the throngs without strain or extra effort.
Subway kiosks jammed
By 8 o’clock, the subway kiosks were literally locked with humanity from Brooklyn, Queens and the upper reaches of the city, struggling to get into the crowds on Broadway and on 7th Avenue.
They came equipped with horns and with cowbells that should have been on the scrap heap these many months. Those who expected to buy noise machines were disappointed. There were no bells or horns for sale; no rubber “blurpers.”
There were virtually no private motorcars, because of gasoline rationing, but taxicabs brought additional thousands from distant city points to the Square. Cabs from Brooklyn carried four and five passengers, picking up additional fares along the way because of the cab shortage.
Theaters reported extraordinary business. Fourteen of the 34 houses in and around Times Square were sold out before 6:30 p.m. and by 7 o’clock the larger motion picture theaters had long queues waiting.
The police kept a particularly sharp eye on jaywalkers and on alcoholics. With the steady stream of cab traffic north and south, attempts at broken-field running in the dimout were highly dangerous. The police acted as tackles.
‘Grand fun’ for Royal Navy
Three young Royal Navy men – the throng incidentally was at least 40% servicemen of all Allied nations – stood in front of the Astor goggle-eyed at the scene. They said they had never seen its like.
The youngest, with his cap wrong side front, kept saying:
Oh, it’s grand fun. It is grand fun.
New Yorkers, laughing and boisterous, shook the sailors’ hands and the sailors pumped the strangers’ arms. Up the avenues and across the side streets, sailors and soldiers, off to an early start, tacked and deployed in little groups, singing and shouting.
In the crisp air, horse cries and laughter carried far. It reached the ears like the sound of heavy surf, especially as you came toward it from 8th or 6th Avenue.
The police horses, ordinarily philosophical and calm, seemed restive. They pegged at the pavement with their forefeet and danced as their riders backed them into the surging crowd.
Around Father Duffy’s statue and by the police booth in the lower Square, police emergency trucks, ambulances, squad cars, fire apparatus and tow trucks huddled in the dark, prepared for any trouble.
Patrolmen in radio cars had been warned to proceed on their lights and not to use their sirens. The same order applied to ambulances and fire apparatus. City officials were afraid that indiscriminate use of sirens might start rumors of an air-raid and create panic.
This was the first year that there was no white-lighted globe on the flagpole of the New York Times Building in the Square to drop at midnight. Signal of the year’s passing was assigned to one of the city’s sound trucks.
Despite the dimout, the crowd was in extremely high spirits. There was more cause for cheering this year than there was on New Year’s Eve in 1941. The crowd that night came to the Square with news of fresh disasters in the Pacific ringing in its ears, with bulletins of fresh German advances in Europe.
Last night, the crowd’s mood reflected high hope, the result of good news from Russia, from Africa and from the Pacific. There were more young men of draft age, out for a fling and they want the decibel register high.
This year though, the Police Department placed a curfew on places of entertainment. Theaters, nightclubs and dance halls had orders to clear their floors at 4 a.m. Last year, the revelers stayed until dawn.