NYC & Company, the offi­cial mar­ket­ing, tourism and part­ner­ship orga­ni­za­tion for New York City, announced activ­i­ties sur­round­ing the 2009 New Year’s Eve fes­tiv­i­ties. The year-end cel­e­bra­tion brings hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple to Times Square, one of the most famous gath­er­ing spots in the world. As vis­i­tors and res­i­dents watch the world-famous New Year’s Eve Ball descend from the flag­pole atop One Times Square at mid­night on the last day of the year, the eyes of the world are squarely on New York City.

The Times Square Alliance announced that they have teamed up with Yahoo! to bring free wire­less Internet access to Times Square.

As trav­el­ers with kids, we know that some­times see­ing a city we’re vis­it­ing through the eyes of our chil­dren gives trav­el­ing a whole new per­spec­tive. We see things in a dif­fer­ent light, expe­ri­ence the his­tory of places and things more inno­cently, and in gen­eral do things and visit places that we might have missed had we been on our own.

Visitors to the Statue of Liberty can now get back inside her head, lit­er­ally. The Statue of Liberty’s crown has been closed since 9/11 for secu­rity and safety rea­sons. On July 4, 2009 the National Park Service reopened Liberty’s crown to visitors.