NYC's Village Halloween Parade
The origins of New York's most culturally significant (and spooky) parade
Chris Wild
c. late 1970s - early 1980s
The New York Village Halloween parade stretches for more than a mile, up Manhattan's Sixth Avenue.In addition to elaborate costumes, the event features giant puppets manipulated by several puppeteers and bands. Each year, parade themes draw upon extensive research into the symbolic language and meanings underlying celebrations and rituals.Today the event sees around 2 million spectators, plus over 60,000 costumed participants. The 2014 grand marshall is actor and TV personality Whoopi Goldberg.
Be prepared to drop your jaw - USA Today
The parade dates back to 1974, when Greenwich Village puppeteer and mask maker Ralph Lee asked his children and friends to wear the 100+ costumes he had accumulated through his work.The parade was so popular it was held the following year.
An event of startling theatrical imagination - Village Voice
In 1975, the Village Voice awarded the parade an OBIE (Off-Broadway Theater Award), calling the parade "an event of startling theatrical imagination."
This was a huge and good and happy gathering of all of us, grown-ups and children, men and women, straights and gays, blacks and whites, all the dualities out there, holding off the darkness and the ghosts, and saying Goodbye, Sun, see you next year - Joel Oppenheimer, Village Voice, 1977
In 2001 it was held a little under two months after the World Trade Center terrorist attacks. Then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani insisted it go on to restore a sense of community and begin the healing process. It had the central theme of a phoenix rising from the ashes, symbolised by a giant puppet rising from a sea of lanterns.
It has run every year except 2012, when Hurricane Sandy left Lower Manhattan without power and forced the parade's cancellation.
Fleeting as it may seem, the Annual Village Halloween Parade provides a subconsciously experienced time structure that lends a sense of durability, continuity and community to New York City life - NYC Halloween Parade's Mission Statement
In 1994, the Mayor issued a proclamation honoring the Village Halloween Parade, for two decades of bringing the community together in a joyful and creative way, for acting as a boon to the city's economy.
Walls are down tonight for the marchers, revealing an indescribably beautiful, powerful, scary realm of diversity - Greg Steinbrenner
These pictures were taken by African-American photographer Anthony Barboza, then in his mid- to late-twenties.
When I do a portrait, I’m doing a photograph of how that person feels to me; how I feel about the person, not how they look. - Anthony Barboza
