• The park benches in New York City's Central Park are the most heavily-used benches in the world. The average bench is used by 8.12 people per day with the average person using the bench for 28 minutes.

• The famous electronic "zipper" that presents news, sports and weather in New York City's Times Square, shows an average of 11,123 different news items per year.

• The island of Manhattan in New York City grew in size by 5.02 percent between 1888 and 2008 due to landfill projects that extended the landmass into the surrounding rivers and bay.

• As of 2007, if all the buildings in Manhattan were stacked on top of one another, they would reach a height of 73.196 kilometers.

• As of 2003, the deepest sub-basement in Manhattan was 89.3 feet below grade level.

• December 31 is the only day of the year during which there are more people on the island of Manhattan between 6:00 and 11:59 PM than between noon and 6:00 PM.

• Each year, more champagne is consumed to celebrate weddings than to celebrate the New Year.

• The portion of the population that is awake at 12:01 AM increases approximately 3.8 percent over the norm on New Year's Day. The portion of the population that is awake at 1:00 AM decreases approximately 18 percent over the norm on New Years day.

• In much of Indochina, it is considered bad luck to kiss anyone between sundown and midnight on December 31st.

• Approximately 14 percent of the population makes one or more New Year's resolutions. Approximately 98 percent of those resolutions are not kept for more than three weeks.