New York City, New York has been the nation’s largest city since the first census in 1790. The city's population has grown from from 33,131 in 1790 to to nearly 8.3 million in 2023, making it a popular destination to celebrate the New Year.
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The annual "Ball Drop" in New York City, NY's Times Square has been a popular attraction for New Year's Eve celebrants for more than a century. In 2023, the city's holiday revelers can cheer for more than just the arrival of a new year. The 8.8 million people living in Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, can also toast the 125th anniversary of the consolidation of the city's five boroughs, helping the metropolis continue its dominance as the largest urban area in the United States since the 1790 Census.
The "Ball Drop" at New York City's Times Square has be a New Year's Eve tradition since 1907.
The annual "Ball Drop" in New York City, NY's Times Square has been a popular attraction for New Year's Eve celebrants for more than a century. In 2023, the city's holiday revelers can cheer for more than just the arrival of a new year. The 8.8 million people living in Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, can also toast the 125th anniversary of the consolidation of the city's five boroughs, helping the metropolis continue its dominance as the largest urban area in the United States since the 1790 Census.
Before New York City became the largest American city, Boston, MA, and later Philadelphia, PA, were the largest urban places in Colonial America. By the end of the 18th century, New York City had taken the lead. Article I, Section II of the U.S. Constitution required that the United States conduct a census of its population in 1790 and every 10 years thereafter. In 1790, there were 33,131 people living in New York City, NY—the first in an unbroken stretch of 24 decennial censuses in which the population of the "Empire City of the New World" led the nation. In the centuries since that first census, Americans and visitors from around the world have made their way to New York City to celebrate the New Year holiday.
As early as 1801, New Yorkers gathered in lower Manhattan to listen to Trinity Church's bells ring in the New Year. However, as New York City's population grew, so too did the throngs of celebrants packing onto Wall Street and the cramped avenues near Trinity Church each New Year's Eve. Lower Manhattan became so overwhelmed with people by the 1890s, that Trinity Church's Reverend Dr. Morgan Dix cancelled the pealing of bells that would have welcomed 1894. Public pressure forced Dix to reconsider his decision and the bells tolled again in 1895.
The crowds around Trinity Church were substantially smaller on December 31, 1897, as many New Yorkers gathered at City Hall to cheer, dance, and watch fireworks celebrating the consolidation of the boroughs of Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island under the single municipal government of New York City, NY, as of January 1, 1898. As a result of the merger—and a massive influx of immigrants—the population of New York City, NY, more than doubled in the last decade of the 19th century, rising from 1,515,301 in 1890 to 3,437,202 in 1900.
In 1904, New Yorkers found an even more spacious venue to usher in the New Year. Newspaper publisher Adolph S. Ochs sponsored a New Year's Eve celebration in midtown Manhattan's Times Square—formerly known as Longacre Square until it was renamed for the New York Times' triangular headquarters building. More than 200,000 people partied in Times Square and enjoyed midnight fireworks launched from the base of the Times Building. Authorities cancelled the pyrotechnics planned to celebrate the arrival of 1908 because they feared they would ignite a fire. In response, Ochs commissioned the construction of a 700 pound, illuminated "time ball" similar to one at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England. The ball slowly descended a pole as the excited crowds counted down the seconds to the arrival of 1908. At midnight, the ball reached the base of the pole and completed an electrical circuit that lit an enormous "1908" sign on the Times Building's roof.
New York City's celebration of the New Year in Times Square grew as the city's population boomed. More than 4.7 million celebrated the arrival of the New Year in 1911 and 6.9 million cheered the first day of 1921. One year after band leader and musician Guy Lombardo first performed his now famous rendition of "Auld Lang Syne" to a crowded New York City ballroom, the 1930 Census counted 6,930,446 people living in the city's five boroughs. [Lombardo performed the song during his live New Year's Eve radio and television broadcasts for decades until his death in 1977.] More than 7.4 million people called New York City home when the ball drop announced the arrival of 1941—the last until 1944 due to wartime restrictions. As New York City's population surged past 8 million in 2000, an estimated 2 million people jammed into Times Square to cheer "Y2K," the "new millennium," and a new 1,070 pound New Year's Eve time ball covered with sparkling crystals. Since 2007, an energy-efficient ball containing more than 32,000 LED lights and 2,688 crystals has been the focal point of the New Year's countdown for millions of Americans and an estimated 1 billion people worldwide.
As New York City, NY, celebrates the arrival of the New Year and the 125th anniversary of its five boroughs' consolidation on January 1, 2023, the "Big Apple" remains the most populous city in the United States with 8,804,190 residents. The Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor continues to welcome a diverse "melting pot" of new Americans to the city. In 2021, 3,079,776 New Yorkers identified themselves as foreign-born, including 1,542,413 Latin American, 910,151 Asian, and 443,113 European immigrants. While more than 4.2 million reported speaking only English at home, New York City is home to many languages and dialects including 1.8 million people speaking Spanish; more than 1 million speaking Indo-European languages; and 676,169 speaking Asian languages. Famous for its historic ethnic neighborhoods like Chinatown and Little Italy, American Community Survey data showed that in 2021, the city was home to 2,464,120 Hispanics; 561,108 Chinese; 547,565 West Indians (excluding Hispanic origin groups); 483,838 Italians; 367,880 Irish; 238,369 Germans; 181,227 Sub-Saharan Africans; 179,850 Polish; 179,008 Russians; and 113,222 Arabs.
Whether you welcome the New Year at the "Potato Drop" in Boise, ID; "Peach Drop" in Atlanta, GA; "Olive Drop" in Bartlesville, OK; or New York City's Times Square ball drop, you can learn more about the holiday and the city that hosts one of the world's largest New Year's celebrations using census data and records. For example:
Many Asian Americans will celebrate the Lunar New Year on January 22, 2023, which coincides with the new moon on the lunar calendar. Festivities include music, feasts, family gatherings, and traditions like the Lion or Dragon Dances (above) that are performed to bring good luck in the new year.
On January 8, 1889, Census Bureau employee Herman Hollerith received a patent for his electronic tabulating machine.
Hollerith began experimenting with methods to speed data tabulation soon after joining the Census Bureau in 1883, and won a competition to supply the mechanical tabulator he invented for the 1890 Census.
Hollerith's designs proved so efficient that the Census Bureau continued to use improved versions of the technology until replacing them with computers (like UNIVAC I) in the 1950s.
January 1, 1920, was not only the start of a new year, it was also Census Day!
From 1790 through 1820, Census Day was the first Monday of August. In response to President John Quincy Adams' recommendation that Census Day move to June, the 1830 to 1900 census acts moved the count to the beginning of June to provide 2 additional months to complete the census.
In 1910, Census Day moved to April 15 to better count urban populations that may be away at summer homes or on vacation when census takers visited in June.
The 1920 Census Act moved Census Day to January 1, 1920. The change came at the request of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Since 1840, census takers collecting demographic data also completed a separate agriculture schedule if household members indicated they were engaged in farming activities.
The USDA believed conducting the census on New Year's Day would provide more accurate crop and livestock data for the recent growing season. Also, most tenant farmers would still occupy the land they farmed in 1919 before moving to new farms for the 1920 growing season.
Following the 1920 Census, the United States' population was 105,710,620 and there were 6,448,343 farms. Of the more than 1.9 billion acres of land in the United States, nearly 956 million acres were improved farmland, woodland, or other unimproved land in farms.
Total gross value of agricultural products was $21.4 billion in 1919. Iowa and Texas led the nation for the gross value of their farm goods harvesting nearly $1.45 billion and $1.37 billion, respectively.
A January 10, 1921, fire at the U.S. Department of Commerce building in Washington, DC, destroyed the majority of the 1890 Census population schedules.
On January 10, 1921, a watchman at the U.S. Department of Commerce in Washington, DC, noticed smoke slowly rising from the floor at about 5:00 p.m. Staff contacted the fire department while another watchman investigated the source of the smoke in the basement. He was forced back by the dense, choking smoke. He activated the fire alarm to evacuate the building's remaining employees.
The first fire crews arrived in minutes. Firemen cut holes in the basement ceiling and poured thousands of gallons of water onto the blaze below before extinguishing the flames 5 hours later.
U.S. Census Bureau director Samuel Rogers assessed the damage the next morning. Shelves containing millions of 1890 Census schedules in bound volumes lay in charred and water-soaked piles on the basement floor.
Rogers initially believed many of the 1890 schedules would be saved, but the waterlogged volumes continued to decay as they awaited conservation. In the years that followed, employees succeeded in saving only a small number of the schedules.
In December 1932, the Census Bureau recommended that the remaining volumes of damaged schedules be destroyed.
Congress authorized their disposal on February 21, 1933.
Learn more about the fire and the availability of surviving 1890 Census records at our 1890 Census Fire web page.