This day in history project
Frank Becerra Jr. talks about his This Day in History Project
The Journal News/lohud.com has been telling stories of the Lower Hudson Valley for generations. This regular column and photo feature takes a look back into our extensive archive.
Four years ago this week, as the world prepared to say farewell to the pandemic horror show that was 2020, USA TODAY Network photographer Seth Harrison prepped for an assignment he'd somehow not been given in his previous 33 years on the job.
He was to photograph the New Year's Eve ball drop in Times Square, an annual rite that is typically witnessed by a million people jammed into the Crossroads of the World.
But not in 2020, as it turned to 2021.
The Swarovski Crystall ball would drop. The year 2021 would light up. And the confetti would fall. But the streets would be nearly empty, save for a few cops, a few fortunate onlookers, and Harrison and a handful of other media.
He had been to the ball drop when he was in high school, but considered it a "one and done" experience, nothing he'd need to repeat. The crush of the crowd. The logistics. The cold. Once was enough.
But then came that assignment, which led to his image of confetti -- and only confetti -- in a desolate Times Square. The trappings of joy in a place bereft of it.
Having dodged that assignment for all those years, Harrison has been back twice since that empty New Year's Eve, to capture a more crowded affair.
But the reality of that grim New Year's Eve, with so much uncertainty in the air along with all those slips of colored paper, is never far from the photographer: A framed print of the image hangs in his living room.