New York's Village Halloween Parade

New York's Village Halloween Parade is an annual holiday parade and street pageant presented on the night of every Halloween in New York City's Greenwich Village. The Village Halloween Parade, initiated in 1974 by Greenwich Village puppeteer and mask maker Ralph Lee, is the world's largest Halloween parade and one the major nighttime parade in the United States. Another famous nighttime parade is the Walt Disney's Main Street Electrical Parade which ended Oct. 2016

It has been called "New York's Carnival." Although the parade is currently not as informal and wild as it was in its earliest years, it is in effect still an alternative festival.

The parade has been studied by leading cultural anthropologists. According to The New York Times, "the Halloween Parade is the best entertainment the people of this City ever give the people of this City." "Absolutely anything goes," says USA Today. "Be prepared to drop your jaw."

Artists went into the schools to create giant puppets with children for the parade. Musical groups were enlisted: pick-up bands, samba bands, Dixieland, Italian, Chinese, Irish, African, steel bands. These groups provided the heartbeat of the parade. Increasingly, more individuals participated dressed in their own fantasies. Bystanders could watch from the sidelines or join the procession.

Starting in 1977, the parade route traversed 10th Street from Greenwich Avenue to Fifth Avenue, entering Washington Square through the Arch. Jefferson Market Library was transformed into a haunted fortress, with a twelve-foot spider crawling up and down the clock tower. On 10th Street, the balconies of Renwick Row became the setting for a gathering of grotesque sophisticates. Washington Square Arch provided another lofty stage. A fat devil appeared up on top, waved to the crowds and released a cascade of balloons; then a dummy of the devil slid down a wire to the middle of the fountain area below. Joel Oppenheimer captured the spirit of the parade that year in the Village Voice:

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