NYC rings in new year with heightened security in Times Square

Revellers play in confetti along a street after midnight during New Year's Eve celebrations in Times Square, New York January 1, 2015. REUTERS/Zoran Milich

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Roughly a million revellers packed New York's Times Square and rang in the new year with the city's annual crystal ball drop under unusually tight security for the nation's biggest New Year's Eve celebrations.

While security is always tight in Times Square on New Year's Eve, particularly since the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, extra precautions were put in place on Wednesday to prevent violence at the famed midtown Manhattan crossroads.