Village Halloween Parade

The festival

What is Village Halloween Parade

On Halloween, New York has a parade in which the public also marches. The Village Halloween Parade travels up Sixth Avenue in Manhattan from SoHo to around 15th Street, passing through Greenwich Village, with giant puppets lit from within, bands, dance groups, floats with music and a costumed crowd. Anyone in costume can simply join the procession without registration.

The parade began in the 1970s, when puppeteer and maskmaker Ralph Lee organized a puppet walk for his children and their friends on the far west side of Greenwich Village, starting from the artists’ housing complex where he lived. People passing by joined in, and the procession grew each year. By the mid-1980s, with attendance already in the hundreds of thousands, the route moved from the neighborhood’s narrow streets to Sixth Avenue.

The giant puppets remain the heart of the parade. Handcrafted from papier-mâché and fabric, lit from within and operated by teams of puppeteers, they follow a theme chosen each year and lead the costumed groups. Marching bands from across the city, dancers, music floats with DJs and thousands of people in all kinds of costumes—skulls and witches to characters created for the event—follow; many costumes include lights, since everything happens at night.

The parade is organized by a nonprofit cultural organization and takes place in rain, wind or cold. Along the avenue, spectators press in on both sides, and the stretches between Bleecker Street and 14th Street are usually the most crowded. For a visitor arriving in the city at the end of October, it’s New York’s way of celebrating Halloween: watch up close, or put on a costume and march in a procession open to anyone who wants to participate.

Each edition has a theme that guides the puppets and inspires some costumes, and a grand marshal, a guest personality who opens the procession. The parade is broadcast live by a local television station, but people on the street hear the bands, the fog from effect machines and the puppets passing within feet. Many families bring costumed children for the first blocks, and groups of friends prepare collective costumes for weeks.