PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Technicians at the Navy Yard Monday loaded fireworks for the two New Year’s Eve shows that will light up the sky over Penn’s Landing.
On the deck of a barge, crews loaded hundreds of fireworks shells into mortars then wired them to computers that will fire off each chrysanthemum, willow and palm at the precise time.
“Each module is numbered for each shell to tell exactly when it’s going to go up in time,” said technician Kevin Stead from the New Castle, Pennsylvania-based firm Pyrotecnico. “You have willows that rain down, you have patterned shells, hearts, stars, that kind of stuff.”
Once the shells are loaded and connected, the modules are double-wrapped with heavy plastic.
“They’re pretty waterproof,” Stead said. “The nice thing about the shrink wrap is when a firework goes off, it only burns a little hole [in the plastic] so the rest of it will stay protected.”
The 6 p.m. and midnight shows are designed to honor the memory of Jodie Milkman, the longtime Delaware River Waterfront Corporation vice president who died in November.
“They put together shows, I think, that hit on all of the themes that Jodie would have loved. And that’s sound, light and color,” DRWC President Joe Forkin told KYW Newsradio. “The special effect fireworks that you’ll see, the nautical fireworks, were especially her favorite. And some of the colors at the end of the show, the pinks and the greens, were her favorite colors.”
Forkin says credit can be attributed to some longtime collaborators of Milkman’s, like Todd Marcocci from Under the Sun Productions and Pyrotecnico, who are longtime fireworks partners of DRWC.
“Some real thought was given by all of the collaborators to say, ‘What would she like? How would she like to ring in 2025 and how can we celebrate her memory?’”
Because of the I-95 cap construction, the Great Plaza is no longer a viewing area, but Forkin says the walkways in the Spruce Street Harbor Park area are available. The rain-or-shine pyrotechnics will be synchronized to the soundtrack, which you can hear on KYW Newsradio at 103.9 FM, 1060 AM or on our app.