Witches, Ghosts, Zombies and Pacman

Three people walking in the neighbourhood of Tribeca, lower Manhattan, approaching the start of the Village Halloween Parade in New York City. October 2007.

Today’s post and the next to come are about two big festivities happening in this period. The first one being, of course, Halloween (by the way, I hope you had a good one). If you could choose a place anywhere in the world where to spend the next October 31st, it has to be Avenue of the Americas, the 6th avenue that crosses Manhattan south to north. It’s home to the largest, and probably more colourful, Halloween parade in the world.

The picture anyway was taken a bit south of the parade area, and 40 minutes before the start. Why not choose a picture taken during the parade itself? Answer: because you can find them online. Just search for “Halloween parade Manhattan”.

What you can’t find online is the atmosphere someone can feel in the streets of lower Manhattan in the hours before the official start, with almost two million people approaching the corner of Canal Street and 6th Avenue.

Yes, you read correctly: two million people. If they would decide to move all together to Halloweenland, it would become the fifth city by size in the US. Not everybody is in costume, normally “only” 50,000 people dress up. But you’re supposed to in order to walk the actual parade that follows Avenue of the Americas for exactly one mile (1.6km) till the end, at the intersection with the 16th street.

Something not everybody would know? Everywhere in the world, Halloween is linked to eerie, sinister and gloomy figures: witches, zombies, ghosts. Not the Village Halloween parade. Thought the Zombie armada is growing bigger and bigger, the general feeling is similar to a Mardi Gras: that’s why there is room for two Pacmen, a fairy, but also Mickey Mouse, Teletubbies, Lego and whatever the mind of the artistic New Yorkers can develop in the days approaching Halloween. Only at the Village parade you can spot a snowman kissing a Toucan or Batman fighting a Scuba-diver for the last cake in a pastry shop.

Don’t believe it? Well, if you read this far, you deserve some more pictures about the actual parade