When I was child, I loved waking up in the morning on Thanksgiving Day and turning on the television to watch the Macy’s Parade from New York City. The truth is … I still like watching the parade and I’m … hey I’m not giving away my age!! The thing I enjoy about the Macy’s Parade that makes it so different from the Rose Parade and any other parade is that at a certain times during the parade it will stop and have a musical performance from a recording artist or a Broadway show right there on 34th Street in front of Macy’s Department store and then afterwards the parade continues until the finale with Santa Claus.
The History of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
This year the Macy’s Parade will be celebrating 89 years of the annual Thanksgiving Day tradition which originally started in 1924. Back then, the majority of the employees at Macy’s Department Store were immigrants who were very proud of being new citizens of the United States and they wanted to celebrate the traditional American holiday of Thanksgiving with a festive event. The Macy’s employees dressed in costumes and with the addition of some professional entertainers, bands, decorated floats and live animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo the parade traveled 6 miles from 145th Street in Harlem to the Macy’s store located on 34th Street and Broadway in New York City. The first parade was advertised in the local newspaper before the scheduled date and had a crowd of over a quarter of a million people. It was a great success and Macy’s decided to make the parade an annual event.
Soon after that first parade Macy’s hired Anthony Sarg who was famous in New York City for his use of marionettes and small balloons. He had come to the attention of Macy’s and they requested that Sarg make his puppets into an animated window display they were planning to promote their annual parade. Later in 1927, Sarg used a large animal-shaped balloon made by the Goodyear Tire Company specifically for the parade. Basically he took the concept of his marionettes literally upside down and the balloon had the controls underneath that were operated by several Macy’s employees instead the controls on the top like a traditional marionette. This first balloon in the Macy’s parade was Felix the Cat, a popular cartoon character. In the following years, several more large balloons were added to the Macy’s Parade, such as a new cartoon character named Mickey Mouse in 1934. These newer balloons were filled with helium to make them float. Also, at the end of the parade the balloons were released into the sky with an address label sewn into the material with a message that if they were found to return the deflated balloons safely to Macy’s for a special gift.
The Macy’s Parade continued to grow in the size over the years with more participants and performers and even more balloons. The parade was starting to attract crowds of over 1 million people along the parade route and the annual event was now being broadcast on a local New York radio station from 1932 to 1951. During the years of 1942 to 1944 the parade was not held because of World War II. The reason for this was that the military needed the rubber and helium for the war effort that used the materials for the balloons. The Macy’s Parade gained national attention when the 1947 film “Miracle on 34th Street” was released and featured actual filmed footage from the 1946 parade. The title of the movie refers to the location of Macy’s flagship store which plays a significant role in this charming movie featuring Natalie Wood as the adorable but precocious little girl who does not believe in Santa Claus!
The Macy’s parade was first televised locally in New York City in 1939. The first national broadcast was in 1948 on CBS. Since 1952, NBC became the official network to cover the event. Originally the program was only an hour long but currently the coverage has expanded to three hours, including the pre-show portions of the program. Since 1960, the parade coverage changed from a black and white broadcast to color version when this technology became available on television sets.
More balloons were added to the parade over the years and they were always familiar characters from television or movies, such as Superman and Spiderman, Snoopy and Charlie Brown, Donald Duck and Kermit the frog and even one year an astronaunt. Since 1984 the balloons are made by Raven Industries located in South Dakota. By 2006, in response to previous accidents and balloon related injuries, new safety standards and restrictions were implemented. Along the parade route wind measurement devices were installed to alert the parade organizers to unsafe conditions. Some actions taken in response to high winds are that the balloons are kept closer to the ground by the handlers and if the wind speeds are predicted to exceed 34 miles per hour the balloons are removed from the parade.
In addition to the world famous balloons, the parade also features musical performances that will stop on the street in front of the Macy’s store located on 34th Street and Broadway. College and high school marching bands perform live music and recording artists perform from their floats or Broadway shows take to the street to lip-sync to prerecorded music. Other performers include the world famous Radio City Rockettes and also college or high school cheerleader and dance squads from around the country. Of course the highlight and the grand finale of the parade is the arrival of Santa Claus.
