For the 25th year, the ABC Tamaqua High Rise will host what is touted as the region’s largest, highest and brightest New Year’s Eve celebration.

The annual Tamaqua Ball Rise will begin at 11:30 p.m. Saturday on the 200 block of East Broad Street, Route 209, said organizers, and will feature fast-paced excitement in tandem with activities in New York City.

“We’ll start with a live feed of Times Square New Year’s Eve,” said Frank Fabrizio of Brockton, technical coordinator, on Thursday.

The live feed will be projected onto a jumbotron affixed to the north side of Schuylkill County’s tallest building.

At just the right moment, says Fabrizio, lighted eagles will make their way 170 feet high, triggering illumination of the largest New Year’s Eve sign in the area.

“We changed over all of the lights to LED.”

Typically in cold weather, die-hards show up on Broad Street about 15 minutes before midnight.

However, milder temperatures this year might bring out the crowd a bit earlier and so the live feed will begin one-half hour from midnight.

The event has a storied history. It was devised in 1998 as a one-time spectacle to usher in the 1999 Tamaqua Founding Bicentennial Celebration.

At that time, two dozen members of the Tamaqua Bicentennial Committee came up with the idea and anticipated a modest crowd of 200 to 250 to line the sidewalks.

To everyone’s surprise, more than 1,000 converged on the block. Sidewalks could not contain the hordes of revelers. The surprise turnout was the catalyst that turned the ball rise into a yearly attraction.

The event has had its share of surprises and unusual circumstances.

In 1999, the committee hyped the show as a countdown to the new millennium and Tamaqua’s step into its third century. That year, the ball went up, then down, and then continued to bounce, setting off fireworks and a light show in front of a crowd of 1,200.

There was added suspense, as well, with many fearing a Y2K bug would blanket the region and entire country in total darkness at the stroke of midnight. But the “Y2K Curse” never materialized.

Originally, the ball dropped from the top, mimicking the one in New York. But over the years, the event morphed into a Tamaqua-specific theme, such as using a blue-and-white Tamaqua school eagle mascot instead of a ball, and lifting those eagles to the highest point.

Each year, the event closes the 200 block of East Broad Street to traffic for a short time.

The event is sponsored by Daniel Reigel Plumbing and Heating, Tamaqua.

Organizers say the festivities could not take place without support of the Reigel business, along with the gracious hospitality of residents of the high-rise, and cooperation of the Tamaqua police department and high-rise management.