Extravaganza unfettered by tight security
NEW YORK — The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade featured balloons, bands, stars and heavy security in a year marked by attacks on outdoor gathering spots.
With new faces and old favorites in the lineup, the Americana extravaganza made its way through 2½ miles of Manhattan on a cold morning.
“The crowds are still the same, but there’s a lot more police here. That’s the age we live in,” Paul Seyforth said as he attended the parade he’d watched since the 1950s.
“Not a lot’s changed — the balloons, the bands, the floats — and that’s the good thing,” said Seyforth, 76, who’d flown in from Denver to spend his 50th wedding anniversary in New York and see this year’s parade.
The televised parade proceeded smoothly, though about midway through, a gust of wind near the start of the route on Manhattan’s Upper West Side on a largely calm day blew a candy-cane balloon into a tree branch, and it popped. No one was injured.
Authorities say there was no credible threat to the parade, but they were taking no chances after both the truck attack and the October shooting that killed 58 people at a Las Vegas country music festival.
Four activists jumped over barriers and briefly sat in the street about 9:10 a.m. to protest the end of a program that extended protections to immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as children, according to a spokesman for activist group Cosecha. Police quickly escorted them back. No one was arrested and the parade was not delayed.
New York Police were circulating among the crowds, sharpshooters were on rooftops and sand-filled city sanitation trucks were poised as imposing barriers to traffic at every cross street. Officers also were escorting each of the giant balloons.
The mayor and police brass have repeatedly stressed that visitors shouldn’t be deterred. And Bekki Grinnell certainly wasn’t.
“When your kid from Alaska is marching in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, you come,” said Grinnell, whose daughter was marching with the band from Colony High School in Palmer, Alaska. Grinnell said she wasn’t worried about security because of the police presence: “I think we’re in a safe spot.”
The 91st annual parade featured new balloons including Olaf from the Disney movie “Frozen” and Chase from the TV cartoon “Paw Patrol,” along with a new version of the Grinch of Dr. Seuss fame.
Smokey Robinson, the Roots, Flo Rida and Wyclef Jean were among the stars celebrating, along with performances from the casts of Broadway’s “Anastasia,” “Dear Evan Hansen” and “SpongeBob SquarePants.” The lineup included a dozen marching bands, as well as the high-kicking Radio City Music Hall Rockettes — and, of course, Santa Claus.