Happy Halloween
The parade route along 6th Ave in the Village was filled with hundreds of thousands of night crawlers anticipating the start of the biggest Halloween party in the country. Now celebrating its 41st year, the parade has grown into international notoriety with groups coming in from Spain and Mexico just to march up and make it a hell of a party. As usual, the parade started with angels imparting blessings to the massive crowd while spreading their magical pixie dust. The once busy commercial 6th Ave. would be transformed to a place of enchantment and horror all in a few hours of sheer madness. One of the many reasons the parade is so popular are the many puppets displayed at the beginning of the parade… from skeletons with Beats headphones to scary pumpkins to multi-colored 30 ft. snakes offering apples to the crowd. The puppets were truly amazing and got the crowd worked up for what would be a thrilling night. This years theme of the Garden of Earthly Delights was presented right after the skeleton puppets when some butterfly puppets and a variety of garden flowers, mushrooms, and plants made way for the largest puppet of the parade…the Tree of Life. Master puppeteers Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles went all out this year with this years theme. What made it even more impressive was adding the combination of the smoking hot all-female drum band Batala with their rhythmic beat. Well played.
Batala jamming
Tree of Life
Royal Pumpkin
All you need is a costume to march in the parade but New Yorkers just don’t put on any costume and call it a day. New Yorkers once again showed their creativity with some of the scariest and craziest costumes found anywhere in the country and I have the pictures to prove it. But the parade is not just about costumes. It’s a huge party with lots of marching bands and dancing. One of the dancing groups that got the crowd worked up was the Broadway Bodies dancers. They got the crowd worked up for a crowd favorite…the Thriller dance group. They killed it this year. A special treat this year was the Day of the Dead commemoration float with memorials of those shining stars that passed on this year. Following right behind was this years Grand Marshall, Whoopi Goldberg, waving to all her fans. One of the better party floats got the crowd worked up with their club music even after I was attacked by a crazy zombie nurse.
Day of the Dead Float
Whoopi Goldberg Whooping It Up
The Wedding Party
A marching band that came all the way from Puebla, Mexico set the tone for the wildest float of the parade with aliens playing and dancing to swing. They were one of the best parts of the parade. The Star Wars Jedi club broke out their lightsabers and dueled their way up 6th Ave. They were soon followed by Darth Vader and the Princess with a few Sandpeople in the mix. The locally televised event was a big hit this year with lots of energy and lots of fun had by all. Scare ya next year.
NYC Parade Life 
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