Updated, 1:21 p.m. | Police officers sounded the all-clear and began reopening streets near Times Square that they had barricaded for nearly two hours in response to a suspiciously parked vehicle. After investigating the vehicle, a white 1992 Dodge van, the police said they discovered nothing harmful inside, only clothing.

“We gained entry to the vehicle and found clothing inside,” in the back of the van, Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman. “There’s no explosive device. The area is being restored to normal traffic.”

During a bustling late morning in Times Square, as preparations were under way for a rehearsal of the New Year’s Eve ball drop, police shut down several blocks on Seventh Avenue and partly evacuated two buildings. The ball drop rehearsal was delayed as the police directed all pedestrian traffic away from the area.

The police first discovered the white panel truck parked and apparently abandoned in Times Square around 11 a.m. on Wednesday. The truck had tinted windows covered by a tarpaulin, was discovered at Broadway and 42nd Street, near where the annual Times Square New Year’s Eve celebration is set to take place under heavy security provisions.

Officials at first said the van had apparently not been moved for some days.

But Mr. Browne said the vehicle was parked at its location since at least Wednesday morning and that investigators did not think it had been left there for a period of days.

He said there was no indication the van was used as a diversionary tactic by a would-be harm-doer; nor do investigators believe it was there to test the police response to such an event. He said there was a temporary, or paper, registration for the vehicle inside of it. Using that, he said, the police are trying “to identify the owner.”

There were several indications that made the police suspicious. The van had a “bogus” placard in its windshield for a nonexistent New York/New Jersey police entity, Mr. Browne said. The placard said something like, “detectives, crime scene, New York, New Jersey area,” said Mr. Browne, who said he would seek to explain what the placard said more precisely.

Even as Mr. Browne cautioned it might only end up being an illegally parked vehicle, it worried the police enough for the Police Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau to respond, along with officers from the Bomb Squad and Emergency Service Unit. As a precaution, the Bomb Squad technicians used a robot armed with a camera to approach the vehicle, Mr. Browne said.

Shortly after noon, the police directed all pedestrians to the west side of Seventh Avenue and were towing cars that were parked near the van.

Mr. Browne said that two buildings were being at least partially evacuated: 7 Times Square, the Conde Nast building, and 1460 Broadway, the building that is home to Nasdaq.

Coming a day before the New Year’s Eve celebration, the police analysis and fast response resembled a test run for the evening of Dec. 31, when hordes of officers will flood Times Square and an array of human and technological sensors will be in place to detect any wrongdoing.

Mr. Browne said the test run was not intended. “We train,” he said, for all eventualities. “We don’t need this kind of event to cause unnecessary disruption.”

He added: “We’d prefer not to have people create a suspicious condition that we have to disrupt.”

But holiday tourists and office workers were jolted out of their routine the day before New Year’s Eve.

Paul Cicero, an attorney, was in his office at 7 Times Square at about 11 a.m. when the police first asked everyone to move to the west side because of the suspicious vehicle.

He said the police alerted the building occupants with an announcement, adding that “they’ve been giving us periodic updates saying that the police are investigating a suspicious vehicle.”

“They moved us to the west side, and won’t let us out right now,” Mr. Cicero said. “They asked everybody to move from their office, anything other than the west side, to move to the west side.”

He added, “I was very concerned at first. I was one of the people who tried to get out. But I guess it is what it is right now. I felt a lot better once I had some information about what was going on, even though I’d still like to get the hell out of here.”

Mr. Cicero said that workers had congregated in hallways on the west side of the building and that they were “keeping the mood light.”

He said the fresh memory of the attempted terrorism attack on a Detroit-bound jetliner on Friday was adding to the jitters.

“I think everybody’s kind of accepted the fact that we can’t leave until they tell us,” Mr. Cicero said. “I think if it wasn’t New Year’s and it wasn’t Times Square and if everything hadn’t happened in Detroit, this would be a lot easier to swallow, but I think that’s what’s causing a lot of the concern.”

Of course they don't care about our politics! They care about our attitude and reaction to their threats and actions. They also prefer we treat these incidents as crimminal/police matters. And since these are just troubled individuals that went off the deep end (like the Fort Hood guy) we need to be sure we provide Miranda warnings and fair trials in case we didn't follow procedure. We need to continue to find ways for the terrorists to like us. The apology tours, closing Gitmo, and exiting Iraq are not enough.