New Year at Times Square

Crowds cheer in the New Year at Times Square despite the cold

BY EDGAR SANDOVAL and RICH SCHAPIRO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Wednesday, December 31st 2008, 11:51 PM

Braving the bitter cold, thousands of revelers from across the globe flooded Times Square Wednesday to ring in the New Year at the biggest party in the world.

"This is something you do once in your life," crowed an excited but frigid Brian Arnone, 44, of Orlando, Fla., as he huddled next to his wife, Kelli.

"I said to myself, 'I better do this before I have kids. I need to scratch that off my list.'"

The Arnones joined a buoyant throng of merrymakers, many of them tourists in brightly colored party hats and oversize 2009 sunglasses, gathered around 1 Times Square to take in the festivities led by Bill and Sen. Hillary Clinton and Mayor Bloomberg.

David Hubin, 23, drove out from Columbus, Ohio, with four pals to see the city and ring in the New Year.

"We were all on break from school and we'd never done anything like this," said Hubin, who was in the thick of the crowd last night. "I've never seen anything like this.

"I love New York," he added. "It's amazing."

Ken and Lisa Mills saved up some cash and also traveled with their three teenage daughters from Ohio to New York to watch the 12,000-pound crystal ball touch down at the stroke of midnight.

But after a few hours of withstanding wind chill temperatures that plunged below 10 degrees, Lisa Mills, 44, was wondering if she could take any more of the cold.

"I'm wearing a sweater, coat, scarf and gloves and I still can't keep warm," Mills said. "I hope to make it through the night."

Still, she remained positive.

"We are looking forward to 2009," Mills said. "It's going to be a great year."

Wearing red and green oversize 2009 glasses and layers of sweaters, her three daughters, Shelby, 17, Kendra, 18, and Kara, 16, cheered with the crowd as they battled to stay warm.

"I hope to graduate from high school this year and hope all my friends graduate too," Shelby said. Her sister, Kara, had a different set of hopes for the New Year: "I want to make more money," she said.

Other cheering revelers had equally modest goals.

Friends Soo Hyun Lee, 26 and Jewon Lee, 23, students from Korea, cheered passersby and embraced each other to keep warm as the temperatures plummeted.

Reflecting on their goals for the New Year, they looked at each other before saying, in unison, "We want to find boyfriends!"

"It's hard to find a good man in Korea," Soon Hyun Lee said.

"American Idol" host Ryan Seacrest was set to oversee the night's musical program, which includes a performance by the Jonas Brothers.

Longtime emcee Dick Clark, who suffered a stroke four years ago, was expected to make a cameo.

All 1,129 cops who graduated from the Police Academy Tuesday were deployed to monitor the crowd, which was expected to swell to more than a million people.

The officers were joined by counterterror teams and Secret Service agents.

Taylor Patton, 17, and Cate Carl, 18, both from Middleton, Md., did not seem to notice anything - or anybody - other than each other as they waited for midnight.

Their bodies wrapped in a thick, red blanket, Patton and Carl stared into each other's eyes, oblivious to the excitement around them.

For the New Year, more money, a new career or other life goals took a back seat to love, they agreed.

"In the New Year we just want to be together," Patton said.

"I just want to spend more time with him," echoed Carl.

Ashley Cormier, 16, and her friend Zoe Jourdain, 16, of Owings Mills, Md., were also huddled together and covered with a red blanket in the hours before the ball dropped.

"I'm gonna stay in my blanket the whole night until I see a famous person, then I'm gonna come out," Ashley said.

And so she looked around and waited, and waited.