In an event that organizers hope will become a New Year's tradition, New Yorkers and tourists were invited to bring bad memories from 2008 to Times Square on Sunday and feed them to an industrial-strength shredder.

"This is the perfect way to move on from a bad year, from a bad experience," said Kathryn Bonn, of New York City, who shredded a printout of her boyfriend's email breaking up with her.

The event, the second annual "Good Riddance Day," was sponsored by the Times Square Alliance, organizers of the New Year's Eve ball-dropping celebration.

Some participants wrote "the stock market" or "cancer" on a piece of paper and shredded it, while others shredded bags of bank statements and cheque stubs.

Kate Anello, a Yankees fan from New York City, destroyed a poster of the city's longtime rival, the Boston Red Sox.

"I hate them," she said. "It felt good."

City resident Jay Ballesteros won a $250 prize for the most creative object to be shredded: a sock representing all the socks that emerge from the laundry without their mates.

"I'm hoping to use the prize to buy some brand new socks," he said.

The Canadian Press, 2008