Times Square on New Year's Eve: the rules nobody tells you

Watching the ball drop in Times Square is on a lot of lists. Almost nobody who writes those lists has done it. Here is what the night involves, so you can decide properly rather than find out at four in the afternoon.

The rules

These are set by the NYPD and they are enforced, not suggestions.

• No backpacks or large bags. There is nowhere to leave them and no cloakroom. Bring what fits in your coat pockets.
• No alcohol, and no drinking in the street anywhere in the area.
• No umbrellas. It can rain. You stand in it.
• Everyone is screened through security checkpoints before entering the viewing pens.
• No re-entry. Once you are in a pen, leaving means not coming back.

The part that decides it: there are no bathrooms

There are no public toilets in the viewing areas, and you cannot leave and return. Bars, restaurants and shops in the closed-off zone are either shut or not letting people in.

So the arithmetic is: you arrive in the early afternoon, you stand until after midnight, and in between there is nothing. People manage it by not drinking anything from the morning onwards, which in turn means standing outside for ten hours in winter without fluids.

This is the single fact that changes most people's minds, and it is the one least likely to appear in an article recommending the experience.

The timing

Pens start filling from the early afternoon and the police close them as they fill, working outward from the stage. Arriving at 3pm usually means somewhere with a view of a screen rather than the ball. Arriving at 8pm usually means many blocks north, where you are in Times Square in the sense that you are in the postcode.

Midnight is the end of roughly eight to ten hours of standing.

What to do instead

Plenty, and most of it is better.

• A rooftop or restaurant with a view, booked months ahead and expensive, but warm and with a bathroom.
• The fireworks in Central Park at midnight, free, with a crowd that can move.
• Prospect Park in Brooklyn, same idea with fewer people.
• A bar in your neighbourhood. New York on New Year's Eve is a good city to be in, and Times Square is the one square where that is least true.
• Times Square on any other night in December, which looks identical in photographs and lets you walk away whenever you like.

If you are going anyway

Eat beforehand. Dress for standing still, which is two layers more than walking. Hand warmers in the pockets. Nothing you cannot carry in a coat.

And charge your phone to full, then expect it not to last: ten hours of cold, a dense crowd all fighting for the same cell towers, and a screen you keep waking up. A power bank is in your pocket, which is allowed. Agree beforehand where your group will meet if the phones give out, because at midnight in a pen of thousands they will.

Quick answers

Can you bring a bag to Times Square on New Year's Eve?

No. Backpacks and large bags are not allowed, there is nowhere to store them, and everyone passes through security screening.

Are there bathrooms in the viewing areas?

No. There are no public toilets in the pens and no re-entry if you leave. It is the main reason people regret going.

What time do you need to arrive?

Early afternoon for anywhere with a real view. Pens close as they fill, from the stage outward. By the evening the remaining space is many blocks away.

Is it worth it?

For most people, no: ten hours standing, no bathroom, no bag, often in the rain. If you want New York on New Year's Eve, the Central Park fireworks or a booked table are better uses of the night.