From Printer’s Devil to Ball Drop

For many, the last few seconds of a year are marked by watching the “Ball Drop” in Manhattan’s world-famous Times Square. It may be hard to believe, but something so iconic can be traced to Knoxville, Tennessee.

Adolph Ochs Courtesy of Jack Neely

The founder of this event grew up here and began a life-long career in journalism on Market Square. As an apprentice at the Knoxville Chronicle, in a sooty, late-19th century town, Adolph Ochs (1858-1935), has long been recognized as the founder of the modern New York Times.

Knoxville became the final home for numerous immigrants who had made long and perilous treks across the Atlantic to escape the disturbing European revolutions in the 1840s. Adolph’s parents, Julius and Bertha Levy Ochs, had lived in Knoxville briefly in the 1850s, then settled in Cincinnati for a time, and moved back to Knoxville toward the end of the Civil War. Adolph’s father operated an exotic general store on Gay Street and served as justice of the peace, and also helped found the city’s first Jewish synagogue, Temple-Beth-El.

Encouraged to work hard by his parents, Adolph began delivering newspapers. Ambitious, he wound up in the office of Captain William Rule, a former Union Officer and publisher of the Knoxville Chronicle, located on the east side of Market Square. At first, he swept the floor and ran errands, but in time he became a “Printer’s Devil” performing grimy tasks, including mixing inks, and cleaning and making light repairs to the printing presses. He was likely filthy from head to toe by the end of the evening shift. But the lad was too frightened to walk home through the murky, gas-lit, downtown streets.

First Presbyterian Church Graveyard (KHP)

Living on the east side of downtown known as the “Bowery,” on what we now know as Central Street, Adolph was intimidated by what he deemed as the spooky old graveyard at First Presbyterian Church. Perhaps other routes home, past dark passages and rowdy saloons, were poor alternatives in his mind. So he often stayed and worked later into the night until he could accompany another employee who was headed home in the same direction. During those extra hours he learned as much as he could about publishing newspapers, and the skills he developed would help him ultimately own his own newspaper.

Before he was 20, Ochs moved south and became involved in the struggling Chattanooga Times. Bringing in the help of some relatives, including his father, he turned the newspaper around and made it a success. By the mid-1890s, an opportunity to save another failing newspaper presented itself: The New York Times, a small paper in a much larger city. Moving to New York, Ochs used his experiences in the South to drastically improve the newspaper, adding what would become signature features such as the book review section and a weekly magazine. He wanted The New York Times to be recognized as a truthful paper, giving it a new motto–“All the News That’s Fit to Print”–one that he borrowed in part from a Gay Street business run by his cousins, the Blaufelds (”All the Seegars That are Fit to Smoke” was the slogan of that popular Knoxville cigar shop).

Times Square circa 1908 (Library of Congress)

The New York Times became so successful that Ochs moved its headquarters to a new location at the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street, known as Longacre Square. In 1904 it was renamed Times Square in honor of his newspaper. Perhaps remembering Christmases back in the Knoxville of his youth, when boisterous men and boys set off fireworks around downtown, he took that memory and created a new celebratory event–one that everyone could embrace, free of religious connotations. He created a New Year’s Eve celebration that culminated in a fanfare of fireworks to ring in the new year.

After fireworks were banned in New York in 1907, Ochs created a different way to mark the stroke of midnight. For inspiration, he took a method used by sailors to signal ships by lowering a ball down a mast. According to The Times’ website, Ochs employed “a large, illuminated seven-hundred-pound iron and wood ball lowered from the tower flagpole precisely at midnight to signal the end of 1907 and the beginning of 1908.” Thus, the famous “Ball Drop” was created, and more than a century later it’s recognized as a symbol of peace and prosperity around the world.

This year, if you raise a glass to celebrate the New Year, spare a thought for Adolph Ochs, the young “Printer’s Devil” who learned the ropes of the newspaper industry here in downtown Knoxville–a city whose deep history has unusual connections throughout the nation and indeed the world.

Note: You can find a plaque recognizing the legacies of Adolph Ochs, Captain William Rule, and the Knoxville Chronicle, by the East Tennessee chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Knoxville History Project at the north end of Strong Alley on Wall Avenue by the Dolly Parton mural.