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Nations around globe united in celebration
By Mitchell Zuckoff, Globe Staff, 1/1/2000
 idnight swept across the globe and civilization partied, howled, kissed, drank, birthed, wept, slept, mourned, wed, prayed, hoorayed, sashayed, and did not end.
In public space, private space, and cyberspace, amid loved ones, strangers, and newfound friends, citizens of the world welcomed the 21st century on every continent in every imaginable way, from bacchanalia to studied disdain.
From one time zone to the next, the only explosions heard were the echoes of fireworks, and midnight arrived in the United States gloriously free of feared terrorist attacks and computer mayhem. And so, it was Happy New Year.
A huge Waterford crystal ball descended in stunning color from high above Times Square, a giant peach was dropped in Atlanta, and a big fiberglass fish took a dive in Port Clinton, Ohio.
They freed doves in Bethlehem, waltzed in Vienna, and promenaded in Berlin. They filled the winding streets of Boston, staged an electronic opera at the Pyramids in Egypt, and bade farewell to Boris N. Yeltsin in Moscow. They hit the beaches in Rio, purified themselves in Peru, and turned the Washington Monument and the Eiffel Tower into giant sparklers. They heard the pope in Rome, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, lighted a million candles in Ireland, and checked their clocks in Greenwich, England.
They rang the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, the World Peace Bell in Newport, Ky., and the Millennium Bell in Detroit. They banged a huge gong in Jakarta, a big drum in Anchorage.
Barbra Streisand put aside her stage fright to schedule a show in Las Vegas, and the artist formerly known as Prince sang ''1999,'' on tape, for pay-per-view. The band Widespread Panic tuned up in Georgia; Maori opera star Dame Kiri Te Kanawa sang in Auckland, New Zealand; and Mel Gillespie and his big band were swinging in Lewisburg, W.Va.
Dick Clark rocked on, in the way most fitting for this satellite-driven new century: on television. Unlike the former Prince, Clark was live.
Thousands of couples took part in mass weddings in Bangkok, Beijing, and a half-dozen other locales, joining their fortunes as they stepped together into a hopeful but uncertain future.
Some expectant mothers begged their doctors to deliver their babies on the stroke of midnight 2000. Other full-term pregnant women in the United States weighed whether to push early to get the 1999 tax deduction or hope they would have the first baby of the new year. One new mother in Berlin did both, delivering one twin in 1999 and the other in 2000.
On the other end of the life spectrum, New Orleans held a rollicking jazz ''funeral'' to bid adieu to the past.
St. John's, Newfoundland, had the distinction of being the first place in North America to celebrate the new year. In the more raucous waterfront pubs, true-blue Newfies and rum-soaked millennium trippers celebrated by smooching fresh-caught fish - ''kissing the cod,'' the custom is called.
''It's a kiss I can spend the next century trying to forget,'' said Elizabeth MacKinnon of Prince Edward Island.
The universal theme of the millennial eve was noise and light. Massive fireworks shows were held everywhere from Sydney to Disney World in Orlando, while laser and light shows were on tap for places as diverse as Hong Kong and Bismarck, N.D. In Roswell, N.M., high-powered lights were pointed skyward, flashing a welcoming message to otherworldly cultures that presumably have experienced a few more millennia.
Boston offered a bit of everything with its 500-event First Night celebration, from ice sculptures to a talking mime, from a percussion procession to midnight fireworks, from the Boston Pops to a ''punk-mambo hard-core juju band'' called Babaloo.
''We love it. I can't imagine being anywhere else,'' said Mary Webb, 45, a kindergarten teacher from Burlington.
And yet, not everyone was swept up in millennial madness. Pollsters said a majority of Americans were spending the night at home, with many citing anxiety about terrorists, hype, and the Y2K computer glitch.
Several leading clerics urged Muslims to remember it is 1420 on their calendar and to ignore the party as meaningless to Allah. Some Jews spent the night quietly observing the Sabbath in the Jewish year 5760.
Others boycotted as well; they called the celebration premature, coming a year before the third millennium AD really begins. And some paleontological skeptics dismissed the date as insignificant in the grandest scheme of things, considering that life on Earth is measured with nine zeroes.
Still, there was no doubt many of the 6 billion people on the planet took note of the new age, in celebration, reflection, or a combination of the two.
The official festivities began on the normally uninhabited Millennium Island in the Republic of Kiribati in the South Pacific. Islanders swayed and chanted along with grass-skirted dancers, lighted torches, and boasted of being the first to see the dawn of 2000 at 5 a.m. Eastern time yesterday. On the tropical beach, they sang in Micronesian: ''Let us put aside all divisions - let us unite in love and peace.''
From there, the celebration marched inexorably through the 24 time zones, heading toward the patient partyers of Polynesia, who would not reach the new year until 5 a.m. Eastern time today.
It was an around-the-clock carnival in New York City, where more than 1 million people jammed a mile-long stretch of Broadway around Times Square. They came from all over, from almost everywhere but New York, to cheer Balinese dancers, Japanese drummers, Afghan puppeteers, and finally the famous ball. The 1,070-pound sphere of Waterford crystal glided downward on its pole atop the Cup o' Noodles tower at midnight, as a blizzard of confetti poured over the crowd.
''It's a once-in-a-thousand years kind of thing,'' said Dan Rogers, a medical illustrator from Chicago. ''I figured if I came to Times Square one year, it should be this year.''
With fears of terrorism at a peak, nearly all of the city's 40,000 police were on-duty, with more than 8,000 in Times Square.
Still, the air was calm and few seemed fearful. Brandy Worthington, a college student from Defiance, Ohio, expressed a common millennial sentiment: ''If it's your time, it's your time. Meanwhile, I'm not going to let anything stop me from having a good time.''
In Washington, D.C., a jovial, well-behaved crowd jammed the National Mall to watch large screens showing singers ranging from Tom Jones to John Fogerty performing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
After an 18-minute Steven Spielberg film that showed a series of images from the 20th century, President Clinton spoke briefly, calling on the nation to fear not the future, but to ''welcome it, embrace it, create it.''
''Our children are ready. Again the torch is passed to a new century of young Americans,'' Clinton said. When he concluded, he and a group of children ignited a fuse that set off a stream of fireworks from the Lincoln Memorial to the National Monument. White lights then illuminated the scaffolded monument, followed by a rush of fireworks in the skies near the Capitol.
But not all the parties were in the big cities. In Lubec, Maine, the focus was sunrise, not midnight. Thousands were expected to descend on the small fishing village to see its first light of the new century, due to arrive at Lubec's Porcupine Mountain at 7:04.
In contrast to the millennium glitz a world away in Times Square, Lubec's revelers appreciated the simple songs of an ecumenical children's choir and looked forward to a free breakfast at the American Legion.
''It has a typical Maine spirit about it,'' said Lee Aragon, owner of Eastland Motel. ''It's fun, simple and laid-back.''
In Las Vegas, the Stratosphere hotel and casino hosted a sold-out shindig for 2,000 partyers who paid $250 each to shout ''Happy New Year'' from atop the tallest observation deck in North America.
As the clock ticked closer to 2000, Las Vegas, like other major cities, got ready for anything and everything. ''In Seattle, the terrorists won, they got us all scared,'' said Stephanie Guarin, whose home city canceled its celebration. ''We're not worried. We're here and we're going to have fun.''
In the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Ill., members of Calvary Memorial Church were wrapping up a Bible-reading marathon that began Tuesday. Some 500 of the church's 1,100-members signed on to read passages in 15-minute segments. The readings were set to conclude with the congregation reading Revelations 21 and 22, the last chapters of the New Testament, in unison at midnight.
On a desert plateau in Texas's Big Bend region, the illumination was natural, as about 100 people gathered to enter the new millennium while gazing at the mysterious Marfa Lights.
Reports of lights dancing in the West Texas sky date to the 1840s, when wagon trains traveling from Mexico first saw them. Scientific investigations have failed to explain the nightly spectacle, in which spots of light change in size or zigzag near the horizon.
In Quebec City, nearly 3,200 Boy and Girl Scouts from 45 nations, including Malaysia, French Polynesia, and Brazil, greeted the millennium in classic Canadian fashion: with chattering lips and frozen noses. Scores of scouts who had come to the first Jam des Neiges, or Snow Jamboree, from balmier lands had to be taken to infirmiries and hospitals for treatment of frostbite, hypothermia, and flu-like symptoms.
''This will be my lesson of the millennium - bring a warm jacket when you go north!'' Mexican scout Rosa Cardenas said.
On the edge of the Arctic Circle, in Iqaluit, the ice-bound capital of Canada's new Eskimo territory of Nunavut, the century was welcomed with Inuit drum dancing on deep-packed snow and the eerie sound of ''throat-singing,'' a kind of melodic keening that emanates from deep in the throat.
In Mexico City, millennial celebrations in the world's largest metropolis ranged from dances and ceremonies at sunset near pyramids to a midnight concert downtown. Some 200 mariachi groups, led by tenor Fernando de la Mora, simultaneously serenaded millions of revelers with the ballad ''Las Mananitas,'' or ''The Early Mornings.''
Beneath the outstretched arms of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, millions of partyers dressed in white thronged the warm sands of Copacabana Beach to mark the new year. As the sun set, followers of Candomble, a religion that mixes elements of Catholicism and traditional African worship, threw flowers into the sea and lighted a carpet of candles on the beach in honor of the sea goddess, while swimmers jumped over seven small waves in the Atlantic to bring good luck.
In Bethlehem, where the countdown began some 2,000 years ago, 2,000 white doves were released into the darkness over the place where Jesus Christ was born in a manger.
Palestinian security forces were out in full force. Some carried mug shots of five members of a Denver-based cult called the Concerned Christians who are believed to be in the Holy Land intent on committing mass suicide, an act they believe will hasten the return of the Messiah.
The crowds and celebrations of Bethlehem were in stark contrast to the unsettling quiet of Jerusalem's streets. Israel's chief rabbinate had decreed that there should be no public celebrations, no fireworks, no parties that would violate the Jewish Sabbath.
In Israel, yesterday was a unique confluence of the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian calendars. It was the last Friday prayer of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the ushering in of Shabbat for Jews at sunset, and the marking of the 2,000th year of the Christian faith.
The State Department's travel warnings seemed to have deterred many American tourists from coming, but they meant nothing to Gwendolyn Brown, 65, of Manhattan. ''I mean, come on, I'm from New York,'' she said. ''I wouldn't have missed this for anything.''
In London, pubs that traditionally close at 11 p.m., a vestige of the world wars when hungover munitions workers were deemed dangerous, stayed open all night. More than 2 million people crammed into central London for Europe's biggest celebration.
''They'll never keep the pubs open all night again, so I intend to stay up all night,'' said Steven Edmonds, a 26-year-old plumber who, like tens of thousands of others, streamed to Greenwich in southeast London.
It was in Greenwich, where longitude starts at zero and Greenwich Mean Time is the international marking of time, where the most attention was focused. There, Queen Elizabeth II opened the Millennium Dome, a $1.3 billion exhibition center. The queen also ignited 1 million pounds of fireworks, which burst over the River Thames in what promoters claimed was the biggest pyrotechnics display in the world.
The French shrugged off the worst storms there in more than a half-century to light the Eiffel Tower with a display that made it appear as if it were being launched like a rocket.
The Irish government mailed every home a millennium candle, and as dusk fell, windows were filled with their light. It was a poignant symbol on an island seeking a transition to peace.
In Berlin, more than 2 million people cheered in the new millennium at one of the biggest parties in German history. The crowd gathered around the Brandenburg Gate, an 18th-century landmark that was once blocked off by the Berlin Wall and has become a symbol for the city's unification since the collapse of communism in 1989.
In Vatican City, Pope John Paul spoke of giving thanks and seeking forgiveness in solemn year-end vespers in St. Peter's Basilica. ''We ask forgiveness because, unfortunately, it has not been rare that the conquests of technology and science, so important for genuine human progress, have been used against man,'' he said in his homily.
In Moscow, the streets were still full at 4 a.m. with wild, maniacal, happy, drunk celebrants. Police hugged partyers and little thought was being paid to the dramatic handover of power precipitated by Yeltsin's surprise resignation.
In Yugoslavia, ethnic Albanian and Serb leaders stood on a bridge linking a divided Kosovo and pledged to work toward uniting their communities in the new year.
New Zealand laid claim to both the first marriage and the first birth of the new millennium. At the stroke of midnight, Monique Croon and Dean Braid were married in a moonlit ceremony atop a cliff in the Chatham Islands, the New Zealand territory that claimed to be the first permanently inhabited land to see the light of day in the year 2000. A minute later, a boy was born in Auckland's Waitakere Hospital.
In Jakarta's answer to the Times Square ball, thousands of revelers rang in the new year with a 6,600-pound, 6-yards-in-diameter brass gong, supposedly the world's largest.
In India, thousands of people driving vintage Enfield motorbikes convened on the beaches of the southern state of Goa for a 12-day nonstop rave party to ring in the millennium.
In contrast, several thousand Hindu faithful gathered on the banks of the sacred Ganges River, where it runs through the holy city of Varanasi. The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader who lives in exile in India, delivered a message to the crowd from a wooden boat trimmed with marigold garlands.
In Japan, millions came to listen to ritual Buddhist temple bells sound 108 times, once for each of the world's evils.
China rang in the new year with activities celebrating the ancient nation's progression from feudal traditions to modern pastimes, from ceremonial fires lighted along the 3,000-mile stretch of the Great Wall to all-night shopping at stores that cater to China's new bourgeoisie.
Few celebrations rivaled the peculiar annual ritual in Hillbrow, a rough neighborhood in Johannesburg, where residents mark the new year by throwing large appliances out the windows of high-rise apartment buildings. By morning, the streets and sidewalks lie buried under a 3-foot-deep carpet of smashed televisions, washing machines, even refrigerators.
The cleanup - there and everywhere - was expected to take weeks.
This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on 1/1/2000.
© Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.
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