The sight was “a torch to usher in the new born, a funeral pyre for the old which pierced the very heavens,” The Times wrote.

By 1905, the city blocks around the new building — Times Square, named after The Times — had already become a New Year’s Eve destination. A description from that first New Year’s Eve celebration in The Times could have been written in any year since: “As early as 9 o’clock the square was packed, and when the time approached when another year should be inscribed upon the century book the crush was so great that progress was well nigh impossible in any direction .”

Over the last 114 years , the festivities have swelled into a global event. The police close off the area to traffic in the afternoon to control the crowd, and an estimated 1.2 billion spectators tune in on TV.

For years, the Times Square Alliance, the co-organizer of New Year’s Eve in Times Square, has selected honorees for the year-end celebration. F ollowing a deadly year for reporters, photographers and other media workers — at least 60 were killed worldwide , according to the Committee to Protect Journalists — the event’s organizers have announced that the 2019 party will celebrate journalism and press freedom, and that the committee will be its official charity honoree.

“In a place that is synonymous with news and home to multiple national news broadcasts, and which itself was named after a newspaper (which started the New Year’s celebration here in 1904), no theme could be more apt as we enter 2019,” Tim Tompkins, the president of the alliance, said in a statement.