January 11, 2010 --

It was drizzly in midtown Manhattan, this New Year's Eve, and the smoke of the fireworks obscured the ball and 2010 at the stroke of midnight. And so, LPR is posting a few images from NYE 2009 -- for now. The crowd was much the same, in enthusiasm, global diversity, and wrappings for warmth, as last year's crowd.

The program provided by NYC -- not very imaginative. Here we are in the middle of the Broadway district -- and no Broadway show music?

LPR met visitors from Australia, Italy, New Zealand, Arizona, Michigan, New Hampshire, Texas. On Seventh Avenue, people were penned-in far back as 57th Street. The Broadway crowd reached north to 52nd street (the New Year's Tower, due to a Broadway bend, is not visible above 51st Street.) LPR estimates the entire Times Square New Year's Eve gathering at 100,000 (maybe).

Mayor Bloomberg

LPR did not spot the mayor this year, but, as the 2010 ball dropped, it was surrounded by people, on Broadway, just below 43rd Street, eager to get images of J-Lo on the platform above them.

For a time, LPR stood, at 45th Street, between Broadway and Seventh Avenue, near a group of young women who were busily taking pictures of themselves and, occasionally, one might wave at the crowds. They might have been celebs, LPR was soon requested by a security person to move back. LPR did not have time to get a photographic image of these possible young celebs. LPR did, however, get an actual image -- of one young woman who waved to the crowd on Seventh Avenue, and, getting no apparent reaction, returned to her friends with a shrug that perhaps echoed LPR's own feeling about being shooed away: the heck with 'em.