New Yorkers look to ring in the New Year their own way

NEW YORK - Not everyone spends New Year’s Eve sipping champagne. All around the city, New Yorkers are ringing in the New Year in their own way.  

Inside the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights, hundreds declined the traditional New Year's Eve parties, opting instead for the annual New Year’s Eve Concert for Peace.  

And while thousands stand in Times Square, a handful of New Yorkers gather in Chelsea for a New Year's Eve sit at the NY Zen Center.  

Some revelers feel pressure to ring in the New Year right. But many people are steering clear of conventions, with intention 

"Many people on New Year’s make resolutions," said Koshin Paley Ellison, co-founder of NY Zen Center. "And I think the opportunity on New Year’s is to think well what is a quality that I can really embody this year, what can I cultivate. 

Cultivating peace in 2023 was the resolution at St. John's, which was meeting for the concert in-person for the first time since 2019. That year, a mysterious new virus had just been reported in China, January 6th was just a date, Russia had not invaded Ukraine and women in Afghanistan were still eligible for education 

"All of which to say, if 35 years after the first concert for peace, we still needed a concert for peace," said 38 years after the first concert for peace we may need this concert even more," said Patrick Malloy, Dean Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine.  

Job search website Zippia did a study to find which New Year’s resolution was most popular by state. In California, the top resolution was dating, in Alabama is was losing weight. And in New York, it was going to therapy.