A marriage blessing. Safety for family in Syria. A single cookie.
Heartbreaking and hopeful, political and pragmatic, thousands of handwritten wishes for 2016 are piling up in Times Square, destined to be showered on New Year’s revelers as confetti at midnight Thursday.
“For my family in Syria to be safe,” Amanda Alzaim wrote on a piece of colored tissue paper.
The Wishing Wall has appeared every December for the last eight years.J.C. Rice“My whole dad’s side of the family is there,” she explained.
The Times Square Alliance’s Wishing Wall has appeared every December for the last eight years. About 20,000 submissions were collected online and at a Midtown kiosk for last New Year’s.
About 20,000 submissions were collected in 2014.J.C. RiceThe paper wishes are posted at a kiosk at 44th Street and Seventh Avenue. There were wishes for Donald Trump to be elected and for him not to be elected; a wish to become a shark; and wishes for an ability to fly, for a dwarf bunny, for “all the money.”
Arianna Moscovitz, 20, and Sam Chiaverini, 21, wished to “be together forever and always.” They celebrate their fifth year as a couple in March.
Nuriya N. wished to “marry my beloved” — her girlfriend of two years. “Her parents won’t let us,” she said.
Rebecca Ivanasco, 18, of Danbury, Conn., asked for safe travels. “I’m going to Nepal in May to volunteer with orphans,” she said.
Liliana Paulino, 11, said, “I wished to be the fifth smartest person in the world.” Any smarter, she reasoned, and she’d have less time for her family.
Sammy Silver of Queens grabbed five pieces of confetti and filled them all. “Why not? There’s a lot to wish for,” he said. He hopes to direct his first film in 2016.
Kiosk worker Brian Decaluwe, 32, said successful wishers often return for another shot.
Recalling one little boy, he said: “Last year, he wished for a puppy, and it came true. This year, he wished for a pet dragon.
“You should have seen the look on the mother’s face.”
