New York's Times Square, left, and Honolulu, right, celebrate the new year

January 1, 2000
Web posted at: 9:22 a.m. EST (1422 GMT)

In this story: New Year's celebrations around the U.S. RELATED STORIES, SITES

(CNN) -- From the crowd-jammed streets of Times Square to the beaches of Hawaii -- with fireworks, concerts and parties aplenty in between -- the United States celebrated the arrival of a new year, a new century and new millennium.

Hawaii was the last state to herald the year 2000 after Alaska, an hour earlier, and the West Coast, an hour before that.

Midnight in the nation's 50th state came five hours after New York had its turn. Up to two million revelers cheered, danced, kissed and sang "Auld Lang Syne" when a 1,070-pound Waterford crystal ball dropped from atop the 1 Times Square building in midtown Manhattan.

GALLERY The U.S. rings in 2000    VIDEO Hawaii was one of the last places in the world to enter 2000, capping off a whirlwind party that swept the globe. QuickTime Play Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K Watch New Year's celebrations in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Vancouver, British Columbia. Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K Watch as Chicagoans celebrate the arrival of the new year with a fireworks extravaganza. Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K   Celebrations • The celebrations guide • Your Millennium Pictures • Panorama: New Year's in New York • 2000 chat calendar • Gallery: Enter another world Stories • Apostles of the Apocalypse: Are we ready for the end? • The great millennium misunderstanding Y2K • Preparation pays off • Your Y2K forum The Future • A virtual peek into what's to come The Past • A thousand years of history   CELEBRATIONS See the world celebrate     ALSO For more ITN millennium coverage, visit ITN on line.

With most of the celebrants gone by daylight Saturday, New York City sanitation workers had begun the process of cleaning up an estimated 30 tons of trash and confetti.

A brief look at Y2K events in selected U.S. locations:

Hawaii

Thousands of residents gathered to watch a laser light show at Honolulu's signature landmark, the Diamond Head extinct volcano that frames the city's Waikiki beach.

Hawaiians celebrated with a fireworks display that lit up Honolulu's famous palm-lined beaches. The vast majority of the state's population followed local tradition, celebrating the new year at home with family, friends and fireworks, many of them illegal.

Thick smoke from fireworks obscured the view of the laser light show and sent some people with respiratory ailments to air-conditioned refuges and hospitals.

Alaska

In Anchorage, a fireworks celebration was briefly shut down and 20,000 people were evacuated from a section of the city's downtown late Friday after a bomb threat. Police found nothing.

Severe cold chilled celebrations in Fairbanks where officials canceled a huge fireworks display because of ice generated when temperatures fell below minus 40 Fahrenheit. But there were fireworks at North Pole, Alaska, a town of 1,500 about 25 miles south of Fairbanks.

Las Vegas

Barbra Streisand sang her heart out for the big spenders, and up to 200,000 revelers turned the Las Vegas strip into a six-block-long party. At the stroke of midnight gamblers paused -- just briefly -- to bid a farewell to a millennium before placing their next bets.

People came from near and far to celebrate amid the flashy neon kitsch that has become this city's trademark, to try their luck at gambling in honor of the new year, and even to marry.

Many flocked to the clubs. The top price for a seat at Streisand's show at the MGM Grand went for $2,500. Bette Midler, Carlos Santana, Elton John, Tina Turner, Rod Stewart and Wayne Newton also performed in Las Vegas.

Florida businessman Ken Peterson couldn't let the 20th century end without marrying his secretary Sheri Harrison, and they made it to the chapel just on time Friday night -- becoming one of the last couples to be married in Las Vegas in the past millennium.

Earlier in the evening, crowds in party hats and plastic tiaras scurried like ants into casinos and hotels which poured free champagne at the doors. But greed put a damper on the quickie wedding business as some hotel wedding chapels raised their prices and, as a result, found so few takers that they had to close early.

Undeterred by the cost, the Petersons paid $2,000 to be married under a faux pink and purple sky in the gilt-trimmed Chapelle du Paradis Wedding Chapel at the Paris Las Vegas resort. The new Mrs. Peterson hit the casinos later in the evening in her white full length bridal gown.

Los Angeles

The official centerpiece of the city's celebration was the Hollywood sign, where the famed 50-foot letters were illuminated with pulsing lights of red, yellow, turquoise and blue.

Mayor Richard Riordan and talk-show host Jay Leno switched on the sign lights at midnight. "It doesn't get any cheesier than that," joked Leno.

San Francisco

Fireworks over the Bay Bridge were one highlight of the city's celebration. Union Square, scene of wild street parties in other years, hosted an ecumenical night of prayer "celebrating life, compassion and diversity."

Eager to preserve the atmosphere, organizers persuaded the Westin St. Francis Hotel on the square to cancel plans for a giant, lighted olive to plop into a seven-story tall Martini glass at midnight.

Taking no chances, store owners in Union Square and near the Embarcadero party scene covered their windows with sheets of plywood. The cable cars shut down two hours early and the trolleys rolled off the streets four hours early.

Some Californians chose to pass a quiet night amid the state's natural wonders. Campgrounds were packed at Joshua Tree National Park and near capacity at Yosemite National Park.

Seattle

The city's party was toned down because of security concerns. Fireworks shot out of the Space Needle at 9 p.m., but celebrants had to watch from a distance. They had to leave the grounds around the 605-foot landmark early in the evening, and the gates to a newly erected chain-link fence were locked.

Taos, New Mexico

Dancers swooped and twirled to cultural rhythms given voice by drums, bells and rattles as the new year dawned in this high desert village. The midnight drumming, part of a global wave of rhythm, was organized to unite cultures around the world using an ancient means of expression.

Groups of drummers from Australia to England had pledged to provide a wave of drumming as midnight arrived around the globe. Organizers of Taos 2000 World Drumming used the Internet to put out a worldwide call to join their effort.

Illinois

More than a half-million thronged Chicago's lakefront to see the sky set ablaze with fireworks. But downstate, in Springfield, Ethel Stephens made it a private observance, paying a hospital visit to husband Byron, suffering respiratory problems. "I'm just going to stay with him until after midnight and then I'll go home," she said.

Madison, Wisconsin

Gov. Tommy Thompson served beer during a public party at his mansion, while funk group Phat Phunktion blasted away.

A sanitation worker in New York's Times Square holds up a sign he found during cleanup

New York City

The drop of the huge crystal ball in Times Square, a ritual almost as old as the century, set off an explosion of fireworks, cheering and kisses as the millennium came to the U.S. mainland.

The huge crowd that packed Times Square, dubbed by New York City boosters as the "crossroads of the world," included people from around the world. Counting down the seconds until midnight, they all became part of the nation's biggest, splashiest and best known celebration, guarded by 8,000 police.

Celebrants who couldn't make it into the limited space of Times Square packed nearby streets stretching as far north as Central Park, more than a mile away.

Washington

With the Washington Monument aglow like an exclamation mark, the 21st century began with chilly revelers toasting champagne in paper cups and President Clinton urging Americans to bridge divisions that scarred the past millennium.

"If the story of the 20th century is the triumph of freedom, what will the story of the 21st century be?" Clinton asked, speaking from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. "Let it be the triumph of freedom, wisely used, to bring peace to a world in which we honor our differences and even more, our common humanity."

The millennium party in Washington was staged along the National Mall and Reflecting Pool. Revelers wore bright-colored sunglasses with zeros for eyes, party hats and glittery tiaras and sparkles in their hair. Neon green light sticks doubled as headbands and necklaces.

Clinton spoke just moments before midnight. The crowd, anxious for the new year, listened with only one ear. Instead, children blew bubbles into the air, toddlers were hoisted to shoulders for a better view, and a boy shook a can of Silly String, getting ready to squirt it as the countdown ended.

The three-hour show included songs, dances and a film about America's past and future.

As the year 2000 arrived, fireworks exploded in the sky. Confetti and streamers showered the crowd and lovers kissed. For some, the midnight moment ended a little too abruptly. The fireworks were brief.

A longer fireworks show came an hour later, after much of the crowd had left.

Correspondent Richard Roth, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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