New Year's Eve as we knew it may have died right around 1977, along with Lombardo and his benign, slightly schmaltzy interpretation of the holiday. Leisure industry surveys showed that many people simply stopped going out for New Year's Eve in the 1980s. Over 60 percent stayed home. Nearly 80 percent of Americans say they feel less safe on the roads during holidays because of drunk drivers. And they are repelled by the slovenly behavior of drunk celebrants.
Drunken revelry is no longer an admired part of American culture.
New Year's has been recreated by the forces for good. In 190 cities and towns across the United States and Canada, civic groups and volunteers have gotten together to organize a better, safer, nondrunken New Year's Eve. They call it First Night. The movement started in 1976 in Boston, that bastion of grass-roots American democracy. That first year, they held 14 events and drew 60,000 people.