By Jennifer Glickel
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
TIMES SQUARE — "3...2...1...Happy New Year!"
Well, not quite yet, but that's what members of the Times Square Alliance shouted as they threw confetti out of their eighth floor office window Tuesday while conducting an "air worthiness test" for Thursday night's Times Square New Year's Eve celebration.
The multicolored confetti flew for blocks on an extremely windy afternoon which saw gusts of up to 50 miles per hour.
"The wind was really strong so the confetti really got whipped around," said Tim Tompkins, President of the Times Square Alliance. "It traveled, you know, five blocks in 30 seconds."
But the confetti that will cascade upon the millions of revelers in Times Square on Thursday night is of a more meaningful kind than today's test confetti.
Much of the New Year's Eve confetti will come from the confetti wishing wall, which is composed of individual pieces on which people from around the world have written their wishes for the coming year. The colorful wall is on display in the Times Square Information Center.
Wishes posted on the wall this afternoon included "I wish that Mrs. Stones will be cancer free," "I wish to get into a good college," and "Amar y adorar a la gente que lo merece," which means "Love and adore those that are deserving."
"You get all kinds of wishes here," Tompkins said. "Some of them very personal, some of them for world peace, a lot about the economy. So whatever is going on in people's lives or in the world, you see reflected in these wishes."
Those people who don't get a chance to visit the wall in person, but would like to have their wish for 2010 on a piece of New Year's confetti can do so at timessquarenyc.org.
