So here it is, at last.

Partiers are stockpiling aspirin. Computer analysts are limbering up digits. Party planners are battling butterflies. Nervous Nellies are testing flashlights.

The days, the months, the years of anticipation end tonight, on this New Year's Eve of a lifetime, this dawn of a new millennium, this celebration of celebrations.

Isn't the city electric with excitement right now? Aren't folks verily jumping out of their skins? Won't the streets be full of jubilant masses at midnight?

Not necessarily.

There are some who have taken on the challenge of making this the best New Year's Eve of their lives, who booked the $3,000, three-night, room-with-a-view package, bought the diamond solitaire necklace to present at midnight just like in the DeBeers advertisement, or snapped up cases of Veuve Clicquot.

More than 2 million people are expected to show up for Boston's First Night. Some hotels have been booked solid for months. So have a few high-end restaurants. And determined revelers are bent on partying like it's 1999.

But talk to a few randomly-selected people, on the streets of Boston, or in its bookstores, or at counters in its diners, and you will find a different kind of New Year's Eve.

Indeed, despite the billions of dollars spent on advertising and preparations, and the inescapable hype - or because of it - this New Year's Eve seems to have left many folks decidedly unimpressed.

The restaurant closings and vacant hotel rooms tell the story: The TV trucks may be lined up on City Hall Plaza, the commemorative party hats and paper plates stacked high on the supermarket shelves, but in the last days of the 20th century, the mood in the city has been low-key, to say the least. A backlash against the hype, together with fears of computer glitches, and, most recently, reports of possible terrorist attacks, have lowered the expectations of many residents, and they're opting out of public millennium celebrations.

Just a day like any other, they say. Too much craziness to contend with. Too dangerous to venture far from home. Too much to-do. Enough with those words, "millennium" and "Y2K." Let it be over.

Like a marathon runner who gives his all in the first 10 miles, the millennium peaked too early, and is limping sadly over the finish line.

"If you'd asked me six months ago, I'd have said it's a celebration to end all celebrations, and you can't miss it," said Pat Moscaritolo, president of the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau. "But today, looking at the numbers in the hotels and restaurants, it's actually slower than a regular New Year's Eve."

Those numbers are low. On an ordinary New Year's Eve, hotel occupancy in Boston and Cambridge comes in at close to 90 percent. This year? Just 75 percent, and 12 percent of those rooms have been booked by corporations keeping technology specialists close to their offices, Moscaritolo said.

Most workers will be treated nicely - many employers are trucking in lavish buffets for them, and one is even providing on-site massages.

But there'll be no photocopying of body parts on the office machine: most corporations have forbidden alcohol. It remains to be seen whether employees will really keep away from the minibar, particularly if midnight in other countries comes and goes without a hitch.

Whenever they drink it, many of the hot shots of the 21st century will be able to afford expensive champagne.

"There are rumors that you can make $7,000 in New York on the night. Most people I know will be working," said Neil Radgosky, a bartender who is studying to become a network engineer.

Radgosky will be mixing cosmopolitans at a private party at Joy nightclub in downtown Boston tonight - to which, not surprisingly, tickets are still available. Sure, $7,000 would be nice, he said, but this is Boston, and if he gets $700 in tips, he'll consider it a good night.

At the Sliver Slipper restaurant, in Dudley Square, diners were far more concerned with their over-easies than with matters millennial yesterday morning.

"That hype started a long time ago," said Darryl Burton, of Dorchester. "Everybody thinks it's going to be crazy, but that's what makes it crazy, people talking about it. I'm going to take it like another day, and stay off the streets."

Talk of computer malfunctions is "just a rumor that's going round, and I think everything is going to be all right," said Jacqueline Cain, who stood at the counter at the diner. At midnight, she and her five children will be dressed in their finest, worshiping at the Lively Stone Christian Center, as they do every year.

For many, the hype surrounding tonight has been as annoying as talk of terrorist attacks has been worrying.

"I'm sick and tired of hearing about it," said Denise Gale, as she watched skaters on the Frog Pond on a bitter afternoon this week. A State Street Bank employee, Gale had been told of Y2K problems for five years, she said. That, together with the advertising and media coverage, made her determined to join the backlash and spend the night close to friends. That determination was redoubled with recent news of possible terrorist attacks.

"I don't know anybody who is going over the top," she said. "Everybody is staying close to home."

Of course, some people have not been turned off by the constant millennial talk. First Night organizers still expect 2 million people to attend its three days of festivities. The $500-a-plate, 13-course function at Clio has been sold out since October; the Bay Tower Room is as heavily booked as ever; and while other hotel rooms in Boston and Cambridge, especially those that offered high-priced, minimum-stay packages have gone begging. The Four Seasons, which did not raise its $550 room-rate for the night, is completely booked.

Most expensive packages did not fare as well, consumers repelled by price gouging, an aversion reinforced by other worries about the night. And though advertising, which slapped that two-and-three-ohs on everything from spaghetti to champagne to candy, was largely responsible for the millennium fatigue, it worked on others, especially in jewelry stores.

Diamond advertisements, like the one in which a man presents a woman with a diamond solitaire necklace at midnight in a Times Square-like place have sent men into stores to snap them up.

"We've noticed sales surging," said Michael Lebowitz, fine jewelry merchandise manager at Shreve, Crump & Low. "The message got out. I'm wonderfully surprised at how many people took the romantic, sentimental point of it, to mark this time in their lives in history."

But for most people, Jan. 1 can't come soon enough.

"I'm sick to death of this Y2K," said Benny, a janitor, who declined to give his surname as he took a break outside a downtown crossing jeweler this week. "My uncle keeps talking about Y2K, telling me to take my money out of the bank."

"But I only have $37 to lose."

This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on 12/31/1999.
© Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.