Excitement and panic.

That's how glass mold maker Lewis Still described hearing that Gillinder Glass in Port Jervis was tasked with producing the thousands of crystals that would cover Times Square's New Year's Eve ball. And they only had two months to get it done. 

Still relished the opporutunity to do something as creative and artistic as contributing to the Times Square ball drop. 

“A lot of the stuff we do is aerospace or runway lighting, things like that," he said. "This is just more unique.” 

Gillinder President Jim Jones said it was a huge opportunity for the 154-year-old glassmaker. 

“We get used to doing a lot of the things that we do for industrial customers or aircraft customers," he said. "And this is something that's actually really neat. And so it instilled a lot of pride in the workforce.” 

Still jokingly called the molds that will eventually shape the crystal his children. It took him weeks to build and test them and get them exactly right. 

What You Need To Know

  • Port Jervis glassmaker Gillinder Glass is making the crystal that will cover the Times Square New Years Eve ball this year 

  • 2,688 crystals, featuring two different designs, will cover the ball 

  • Workers at Gillinder worked around the clock to create the crystals on short notice 

The painstaking part was sculpting thousands of glass pieces.

For Tim Mills Jr., it was just another day on the job. But it’ll be a surreal one on Dec. 31. 

“I'm definitely staying up," Mills said. "I'm a little older now, so come eight o'clock, I'm ready to snooze. But I'm watching it this year, and I'm going to feel a sense of pride.” 

Not every crystal will be perfect, so it’s up to quality manager Eric Camacho to go through each one. He ensures that only the pieces that shine the brightest make it through. 

“We definitely took pride in this project to where we wanted to make sure that the pieces that we supplied to Jamestown and to the One Time Square team were the best that we can get them," he said. "So we actually waded through hundreds of pieces to make sure that the ones that we said to them were the best.”