Hallowe'en in Manhattan (Halloween Parade)

Member Name: Jimmy Muffin

Product:	Halloween Parade
Date:	06/09/00 (33 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great atmosphere and lots of fun

Disadvantages: Police protect it so well that you can't get near it.

America really does take Hallowe'en incredibly seriously. I was in New York for Hallowe'en last year (October 1999) and the sights were absolutely incredible.

There is a huge parade through the centre of Manhattan which starts at about 6PM and finishes at midnight. The route is published in the NY Times a couple of days before hand, when I was there it travelled all the way down Broadway from Wall Street to just south of Central Park.

The police presence for things like this is huge and whilst it is great that the new clean and sparkly New York is so much safer for all (including us tourists) it does make some things inaccessbile.

We turned up to the parade at about 8PM. All the surrounding streets were blocked off and the beginning and end of the parade was blocked off. Consequently, unless you had actually been on Broadway for the start of the parade, and were willing to stand there for 6 hours until the end of the parade, then you couldn't really get very near it.

However, once we gave up and started walking around the surrounding streets, we realised that everybody in New York was dressed in incredibly elaborate costumes, whether they were in the parade or not.

We saw some incredible costumes and the atmosphere was electric.

A great experience but I would have been worried if I had kids with me, the streets are jam packed full and there are a lot of strange characters making the most of their opportunity to be strange in public.

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