Smaller Macy’s parade still wows
NEW YORK — It’s a yearly Thanksgiving Day tradition: Millions of spectators crammed onto long city blocks, hanging over barricades and balconies or pressed against the windows of towering office buildings to watch giant balloonshovering just a fewfeet above the street.
But this year, as with everything in 2020, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was drastically different.
ecause of the threat of the coronavirus, much of the parade in Manhattan was scaled down and pretaped for the television airing. The route was reduced from 2 miles to a single block down 34th Street, near the flagship department store.
There were no high school bands. Instead of the usual 2,000 balloon handlers, there were only about 130.
Warnings from officials to stay home because of the pandemic kept millions indoors this year, and police barricades were put in place toensure thatnobodygot tooclose.
Still, some spectators were curious and showed up anyway.
On 34th and Fifth Avenue, Karin Schlosser, 52, stood behind one of the barricades taking photos of the floats and balloons. The balloons this year included the characters Boss Baby and Red Titan from “Ryan’s World.”
“I felt like it was a big adventure to just come on down here and see what I could see — and I actually saw much more than I expected to see,” said Schlosser, who’s from California but is living in New York City for a month while working from home. “This is so amazing.”
Henry Danner of the Bronx recalled going to the parade with his family as a child. This year, Danner, 34, said he was most interested in witnessing and documenting what it was like to attend a paradeduring a pandemic.
“The Thanksgiving parade is a staple innewyorkhistory,” Danner said. “I came to see what story I could capture. I knew New York was going to be New York and still come out.”