NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Throngs of revelers in and around New York's Times Square gave a boisterous welcome to 2012 amid tight security, sending off a year marked by a grim anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the city.
Fireworks filled the sky at midnight and confetti dropped on revelers in the square after a large lighted crystal ball descended for the last minute of the old year -- a tradition started in 1907.
The light-studded ball was raised six hours before the drop, and police who closed off streets around Times Square also prohibited celebrants from bringing alcohol, backpacks, large bags or packages into the area.
The raucous celebration, which had been expected to draw a million revelers, included a line-up of performances by pop stars Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga, among others.
"It's just something that we've always wanted to do," said one reveler, a Canadian woman who gave her name as Peggy and had traveled from Newfoundland. "We said this would be the year that we'd come and try it, and we're glad we did."
Unusually mild temperatures of around 50 degrees Fahrenheit encouraged the revelers to fill streets stretching an expected 20 blocks from Times Square toward Central Park, said Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance.
Several hundred anti-Wall Street protesters also streamed into Manhattan's Zuccotti park, video footage showed, returning to the birthplace of the national Occupy movement against economic inequality that has seen its momentum falter as cities closed tent camps around the country.
At one minute before midnight, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and singer Lady Gaga pressed the button that signals the start of a 60-second descent of the Waterford crystal ball.
"I thought I was going to freeze, but it's not that bad at all," said a young woman named Alexis who came from Virginia with her friend Rachel to see Justin Bieber and "because it's fun, and it's cool, and I've never been to New York."
The dropping of the 11,875-pound ball, studded with more than 32,000 LED lights, from its perch above Times Square was televised around the world.
NO KNOWN SECURITY THREATS
Police spokesman Paul Browne said the city was expecting about a million visitors in the square on Saturday night, drawn in part by relatively mild weather.
Browne said bomb squad units were conducting sweeps of hotels, theaters, construction sites and parking garages, but was not aware of any specific security threats to the city.
"New York City is always at the top of the terrorists' target list and we treat most large gatherings, especially high profile, iconic ones like New Year's Eve, as potential targets," Browne said in an e-mail. "However, there are no known threats on the city coinciding with New Year's Eve."
A Pakistani American, Faisal Shahzad, pleaded guilty in 2010 to rigging up a crude car bomb packed with explosives and parked near Times Square. The bomb failed to go off and Shahzad later said he had been trained by Pakistani Taliban fighters.
Radiation-detection boats were deployed in the city's waterways on Saturday, where 33 dinner cruises were scheduled to take place, and officers would patrol the city's streets and transit system, Browne said.
The New Year's Eve line-up had also included a toast to the memory of those who died in the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center. Somber ceremonies marked the 10th anniversary of those attacks in September.
That came after 2011 saw U.S. forces kill al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, in a May raid in Pakistan. The year also saw the last of U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq in mid-December although U.S. forces remain in Afghanistan.
President Barack Obama, in a year-end weekly address, struck a hopeful note as he hailed foreign policy milestones including successes against al Qaeda, while keeping pressure on Congress to further extend payroll tax cuts through the end of 2012.
The president, whose prospects for reelection later in 2012 are expected to hinge in part on the strength of the economy, said 2011 was a "time of great challenge and great progress."
"There's no doubt that 2012 will bring even more change. And as we head into the New Year, I'm hopeful that we have what it takes to face that change and come out even stronger - to grow our economy, create more jobs and strengthen the middle class," he said, speaking from a week-long vacation in Hawaii.
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen and David Bailey; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)
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