Celebrate New Years First-Ever Noon Year’s in Downtown Cortland

Matt Brooks: [00:00:00] Good morning. I’m Matt Brooks on X 1 0 1. Always classic and for another edition of Meet Cortland County. And we got a full house this morning ’cause we got the City of Cortland, mayor Scott Steve, Andrea  Piedigrossi, youth Bureau director, and Derek Reynolds, deputy Fire Chief in the studio join.

Thank you, for joining me this morning. Good morning. Thanks for having us.

Mayor Scott Steve: Good.

Derek Reynolds: Thanks for having us.

Matt Brooks: All right, we got a great and fun new event coming to the city of Cortland on New Year’s Eve. We’re not talking about the midnight party, we’re talking about noon year’s Eve going on from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM right on Main Street between Central Ave and Groton Ave and the city of Cortland.

Now, first off, can you tell me about this event? What’s it all about?

Mayor Scott Steve: It’s on Main Street when we’re trying to get the youth, involved and get the people that don’t wanna spend, get up at midnight, get downtown and, come down and see the other businesses that are there and have a great time.

And, some of the youth activities.

Matt Brooks: Yeah. We’re, you’re speaking my language with, not staying up till midnight. I think, I’m past my prime for that one. [00:01:00] Speaking of the, it’s coming up at noon, you’re talking about, it’s a great way to see businesses in the city of Cortland and. Way to say it, not stay up till midnight about it.

What was the real inspiration for an event this?

Andrea  Piedigrossi,: I think our son actually, always wants to stay up to watch the ball drop. And we usually show ’em the clip from last year, around eight o’clock right before bed. And, we thought it’d be a great idea to have an event geared towards kids where they can celebrate the new year.

Matt Brooks: No, that that’s, that’s, it’s great because then also you can get the kids to have some fresh air. You get to see the ball drop and, you don’t have to find the clip from last year’s ball drop to, to get them to bed. Now, can you tell me some of the attractions coming up at noon year’s Eve?

Andrea  Piedigrossi,: Yeah, we have a apple cider toast sponsored by Beacon Skiff.

We’ve got, 2026 balloons that we’re gonna drop right at noon. We have splat, something coming and the Sun Dog. Golf [00:02:00] simulator simulator.

Mayor Scott Steve: And then we have, Jack Gerhardt, our local legend in our community that, that created the Cortland song, which is our adopted song who will be singing after at the end.

And, miss Tammy from our library or is, ex in. Just a dynamic energy burst as she’s got some books to read. And then we also tied our local school districts into, and our private school, St. Mary’s is making posters and countdown. They’ve all in their art classes, they’ve been doing countdown numbers.

And, to do that, we all, because we’re the Crown City, we’ve given out paper crowns that are to be decorated and colored. We’ll have some there for the people that didn’t get ’em, that are, be distributed through the schools, to decorate the crowns, wear their crowns, and be part of the crown city. To drop it the show mobile will be there with the balloons attached to it to drop down on top of everybody.

That’d be a great time, to get everybody out to, enjoy the beautiful day.

Matt Brooks: No, it’s amazing how everybody’s really coming together for this event. I mean, we have the Midnight on Maine that’s coming up that we’ll have, that we, we have [00:03:00] annually. But having this family friendly and community centric event that really shows off.

The, the how close this community is and, what better way to celebrate community than with a noon year’s eve party. Now there’s

Derek Reynolds: also one major player we forgot to mention, always classic 1 0 1 will be there with, Mr. Jack Eves himself scratching the, I didn’t wanna toot

Matt Brooks: our own horn. But yeah, we’re gonna be, we’re gonna be there.

It’s gonna be a whole lot of fun. We’ll be broadcast live on location, be sure to keep an eye out for our van. But speaking of Van, speaking of vehicles. It’s gonna be a very festive event. A lot of people there, anything people should know about if they’re gonna be going to the event, maybe, they, they’re busy and they have, but they still have to be in the area or talk, talking about road closures, where to park, and, just the general knowhow we don’t have people getting lost trying to get to it.

Mayor Scott Steve: I think the most important part is, it’s right by New York Bagel and then heading North. Main, it’s on Main Street blocking, from Groton, navs. We’re Groton Avenue, the intersection of Main Street down to Central [00:04:00] Meet. We’ll be blocking off that area to inspire the businesses on that end.

And New York Bagels gonna be involved and they’ll be out there and, splat, something, something will be there doing things for events for the kids, as well. And, and again, it’s for adults and. Kids. Groton, a parking lot, Clinton n parking lot. There’ll be, there’s not businesses.

A lot of the, some of the businesses won’t be open, but the other ones will. Downtown will be open. That’ll be there. But, there should be plenty of parking there. And of course, on the other ends of Main Street, you can back in and walk right up the road.

Matt Brooks: Just make sure, you just don’t expect to drive all the way down Main Street on the 31st.

You’ll have to either make a detour and there’s plenty of parking in the city of Cortland. Now we are running a bit out of time, but before, before we head outta the studio, is there a a, a good place to go if people wanna learn more about the attractions, learn more about the event itself, parking situations and stuff?

Mayor Scott Steve: The Youth Bureau website and the city website both have it, and we just also make a note. 15 degrees is the arbitrary number we picked. If it is colder than that, we are gonna move it into the Youth Bureau Center. That, again, that’ll be all. [00:05:00] Keep an eye on that through our Facebook and our websites to make sure that everybody’s aware of Exactly.

If we spin that we’ll, we should know that way ahead of time we would do that. But we’re excited. We put our first banners up today, going both ways on Main Street, the banner, we had to get two banners we could have both ways instead of once. We’re excited to get everybody out there and get everybody educated about this.

Matt Brooks: It’ll be a fantastic event. One of, we’ve already had several events with the, the new, new. Two, two-way, main Street, but a great way to show off the, the area as well. That is noon year’s Eve, a party going on around noon on December 31st. 11 2, 1. Right on Main Street in the city of Cortland.

Learn more over at the City of Cortland website and the Youth Bureau website. We’ll be there as well, broadcasting live. But for now, thank you everyone for, joining me this morning to talk about this great event that you don’t have to stay up till midnight for.

Mayor Scott Steve: Perfect. Thank you. Hope to see you there.

Derek Reynolds: Hope to see you there.

Matt Brooks: This has been another edition to meet Cortland County here on X 1 0 1. Always classic. I’m Matt Brooks.