cross roads of the world, perhaps the most famous celebration, new york's times square. the venue is cleared of snow five days after a blizzard blanketed the area with up to 29 inches of it. the mountains of the unwanted white stuff has since been dumped into those giant melters and washed away. allan chernoff is live for to us set the stage. so a million people are expected. are they ready? good morning. >> reporter: the countdown is on. only eight hours from now, the biggest party on the planet is going to begin. that will be 6:00 here in times square. there will be music, dancing, confetti, a wedding underneath the big ball and then of course at midnight, the dropping of the ball followed by fireworks. tons of family fun which is very, very different from the way new year's eve used to be here in times square. that's when it was just a nice of drinking and fighting. could you say that times square has cleaned up its act.