11 Facts About Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

 For most of us, Thanksgiving day signals the beginning of the holiday season.  If you ask people about Thanksgiving day parades, most people will  name "Macy"'s Thanksgiving day parade.  It's the one we watch on Television just to see which balloon characters they'll have this year.  Although, its is not the first parade, it seems to be one of the better known ones.

This parade has a long and interesting history and set many firsts over time, so I'll share some facts about Macy's Thanksgiving day parade.



1.  Macy's day parade originally was a Christmas themed parade held on Christmas Day, not a Thanksgiving day Parade.  The store began in a location about 20 blocks south of where it is now at 20th Avenue and 14th street.  In 1902, the store moved to Broadway and 34th street and in the process, it continued expanding until it covered one city block with over one million square feet of retail space.

In 1924, the employee's of Macy's organized a Christmas parade beginning up at 145th street filled with bands, floats such as Little Miss Muffet, Red Riding Hood, animals such as elephants, from the zoo and concluding with Santa Clause and the unveiling of the store's Christmas Windows.  While most of the participants in the parade were actually store employees, the police had their hands busy with over 250,000 onlookers.  It wasn't until 1927, the store renamed it the Thanksgiving day parade when it was moved to Thanksgiving day.

2.  In 1926, The Allied Patriotic Societies protested holding the parade on Thanksgiving day because it interfered with with the sanctity of the day by interfering with the traditional Thanksgiving day worship.  The Allied Patriotic Societies tried to have the parade permit pulled but were unsuccessful because Macy's argued the parade only featured the word Macy's once so the store was not really advertising themselves.  In addition, by having the parade in the morning, it did not interfere with Thanksgiving day services and it was the only time that children were available to enjoy the parade.  The last thing was that traffic was light on Thanksgiving morning, making it easier to have the parade.

3.  This was not the first parade in New York City.  It was preceded by the Thanksgiving Ragamuffin Parade where children were encouraged to dress up as beggars and beg for pennies, candy and apples from adults but Macy's eventually replaced the other parade due to popularity and it disappeared.

4.   Balloons joined the parade in 1927 with a 60 foot dinosaur and a 25 foot dachshand and Felix the Cat  inspired by a balloon float covered in balloons the previous year.  In addition to dealing with high winds and weird weather, they also had to deal with the elevated train the ran down Sixth Avenue until 1938.  Mickey Mouse joined the parade in 1934, the same year, they had a balloon of Eddie Cantor.

5. At the end of the 1927 parade, the balloon figures were released into the air and they popped but this changed the following year.  The five huge balloon figures were released into the atmosphere where they were expected to stay aloft up to 10 days.  Macy's arranged for a $100 reward for the return of those balloons.  The first one landed on the roof of a Long Island home where so many people tried to recover it, they broke the balloon into pieces.  Within a few days, all but one had been recovered but the last one was seen floating over the ocean, never to be seen again.  Macy's continued these balloon races until 1932 due to pilots beginning to try to snag the balloons in the air and the dangerous situation it presented.

6.  In 1932, they began broadcasting detailed descriptions of the parade over the radio so you had to use your mind to picture all the entries, the balloons, everything.  However, they began broadcasting the parade over television in New York City in 1946 but NBC broadcast it nationally one year later so you could see it on television rather than listen to the description.

7.  Since Manhattan is so small and the balloons are so large, people can go check out the various balloons being inflated the night before.  If you head off to the area by 77th Street and Central Park West, over near the American Museum of Natural History, you can watch the balloon characters come to life due to being inflated and painted.  If you are curious, the balloons are constructed in Macy's parade studio over in New Jersey.

8.  For so many years, the parade route went down Broadway but in 2009, the route changed to Seventh Avenue because the city constructed pedestrian plazas along Broadway.  The route changed again to Sixth Avenue in 2011 which didn't please some people.  This year, 2019, the route begins at 77th street and Central Park West before turning onto 59th street and continue past the park to Sixth Avenue.  It continues down Sixth to 34th street, where it will turn right, ending at the main Macy's store.

9.  Unfortunately, weather can make the parade quite interesting.  In 1958, the rain filled the Popeye Balloon's hat with so much water, it spilled over and drenched the onlookers.  It happened again in 1962 with the Donald Duck Hat.  In 1997, the wind blew at 40 mph making the balloons difficult to control.  One balloon ran into a lamppost and injured four people, one of whom remained in a coma for a month, while the Pink Panther balloon created a problem  for one of the handlers.

10.  The original floats were pulled by horses until 1939 when they switched to automobiles and trucks to move floats.

11.  The parade halted for two years during World War II due to both  helium and rubber being in short supply.  As a patriotic gesture, Macy's cancelled the parade from 1942 to 1944, deflated all their rubber balloons and donated them to the United States government.  The parade returned in 1945 and Macy's used a new route in 1946.

This was not the only time the parade had problems like this.  There was another helium shortage in 1958 but Macy's collaborated with both Goodyear and Traynor and Hanson to fill the balloons with air and moved them by dangling each balloon from a mobile construction derricks.