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History Channel: The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

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History Channel: The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

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History of the Thanksgiving Day Parade | History

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Read about what's planned for the 2022 Parade!

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Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade 2023 – Lineup Info & More

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Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade kicks off another holiday season in 2023. Get excited for giant balloons, fantastic floats & more fun!

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Read about the history of the parade.

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As the United States prospered during the Roaring Twenties, so did New York City's iconic department store-Macy's. After going public in 1922, R. H. Macy & Co. started to acquire competitors and open regional locations. Macy's flagship store in Manhattan's Herald Square did such a brisk business that it expanded in 1924 to cover an entire city block stretching from Broadway to Seventh Avenue along 34th Street.

To showcase the opening of the "World's Largest Store" and its 1 million square feet of retail space at the start of the busy holiday shopping season, Macy's decided to throw New York a parade on Thanksgiving morning. In spite of its timing, the parade was not actually about Thanksgiving at all but the next major holiday on the calendar- Christmas. Macy's hoped its "Christmas Parade" would whet the appetites of consumers for a holiday shopping feast.

The idea of a store-sponsored Thanksgiving parade did not originate with Macy's, however, but with Philadelphia's Gimbel Brothers Department Store, which first staged a Thanksgiving procession in 1920 with 50 people, 15 cars and a fireman dressed as Santa Claus who ushered in the Christmas shopping season. Like Macy's, J.L. Hudson's Department Store in Detroit also planned a similar event in 1924. In New York, however, the only Thanksgiving parade that had previously passed through the city's streets was its peculiar tradition of children painting their faces and donning tattered clothes to masquerade as "ragamuffins" who asked "Anything for Thanksgiving?" as they went door-to-door asking for pennies, apples and pieces of candy.

At 9 a.m. on the sunlit morning of November 27, 1924, Macy's gave the children of New York a particularly special Thanksgiving treat as a police escort led the start of the parade from the intersection of 145th Street and Convent Avenue. The early-morning start time of "Macy's Christmas Parade" overlapped with many church services, but it gave spectators plenty of time to make it to the afternoon's big football game between Syracuse and Columbia universities at the Polo Grounds.

Macy's had promised parade-goers "a marathon of mirth" in its full-page newspaper advertisements. While the parade route may not have extended over 26 miles, its 6-mile length certainly made for a long hike for those marching from Harlem to Herald Square. The spectators who stood four and five people deep, however, could watch it all in just a matter of minutes since the modest street pageant stretched the length of only two city blocks.

To match the nursery-rhyme theme in Macy's Christmas window display in 1924, floats featured Mother Goose favorites such as the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, Little Miss Muffet and Little Red Riding Hood. Macy's employees dressed as clowns, cowboys and sword-wielding knights. A menagerie of animals on loan from the Central Park Zoo-including bears, elephants, camels and monkeys-offered a circus-like atmosphere as four bands provided the soundtrack to the festive march. Bringing up the rear of the parade was a float bearing the guest of honor-Santa Claus-sitting in his reindeer-driven sleigh on top of a mountain of ice.

By noontime, the parade finally arrived at its end in front of Macy's Herald Square store where 10,000 people cheered Santa as he descended from his sleigh. After being crowned "King of the Kiddies," Kris Kringle scaled a ladder and sat on a gold throne mounted on top of the marquee above the store's new 34th Street entrance near Seventh Avenue. With a bellow from his trumpet, Santa sounded the signal to unveil "The Fair Frolics of Wondertown," the Christmastime window display designed by artist and puppeteer Tony Sarg. As soon as the police lowered their crowd-control lines, children rushed to the 75-foot-long window to see the miniature Mother Goose marionette characters on moving belts frolicking in their own parade in front of a castle-like facade.

Although the parade garnered only two sentences the following day in the New York Herald-the same amount of ink given to the charity dinner and screening of the "The Ten Commandments" for the prisoners at the Sing Sing correctional facility-it proved such a smash that Macy's announced in a newspaper advertisement the following morning that it would stage the parade again the following Thanksgiving. "We did not dare dream its success would be so great," stated the advertisement.

Macy's Christmas Parade quickly became a New York holiday tradition to the joy of nearly all except the zoo animals, who did not revel in the six-mile journey, and the marchers treading carefully in their wake. The roars and growls from the tired animals frightened young spectators, so they were replaced by less-surly and more-obedient character balloons, which quickly became the parade's signature attractions after the debut of a helium-filled Felix the Cat, designed by Sarg, in 1927.

While the route has been scaled back to a length of two-and-a-half miles, the size of the parade itself has blossomed with dozens of balloons, marching bands, celebrities and cheerleaders. Although it is now called the "Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade," Santa Claus remains the show-stopper, and his arrival in Herald Square still heralds in the Christmas season in New York.

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The First Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade | HISTORY

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Look back at the humble origins of an American holiday tradition-the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

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The history of Macy's Thanksgiving Parade: 5 things you may not know | CNN

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Do you love watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on television? If you do, float on over to these five fun historical facts.

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Here is a closer look at the milestones and mishaps involving the helium-filled characters that populate the holiday parade.

Snoopy, seen in 1999, has appeared in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade more than any other character. Credit... The New York Times

A hippopotamus soared over the ocean. A cartoon character burst into flames after drifting into a high-tension wire. And a 60-foot cat sent a plane and its two passengers plummeting.

These are just some of the fates met by the giant balloons that have glided through the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York over the years.

After a shortened, audience-free event in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, thousands of spectators are expected to line Manhattan's streets on Thursday to watch this year's parade, and millions more will view it on NBC. There will be floats, marching bands and clowns. But the enormous balloons remain one of the biggest draws.

Here is a closer look at the milestones and mishaps involving the helium-filled characters sailing overhead, and the curiosities of a nearly century-old holiday tradition.

The first Macy's parade, in 1924, looked very different from today's celebration. Animals from the Central Park Zoo, including elephants and tigers, joined the procession. The giant balloons that the parade is now known for did not show up until a few years later.

In the late 1920s, Macy's began releasing its balloons into the sky after the festivities, with a monetary reward offered for their return.

The New York Times reported on the various places where the balloons landed. In 1928, a balloon called the Sky Tiger descended on a Long Island neighborhood where "a tug of war ensued for its possession." Another balloon was found broken in half and floating in the East River, "pursued by two tugboats."

In 1931, the balloons included a 287-foot-long dragon that was held by 29 men. Macy's released it and about 16,000 other balloons, many of them much smaller. Some carried postcards that could be brought to Macy's for a prize.

A blue hippopotamus balloon escaped the New York area, however, and was believed to be "soaring somewhere over the ocean."

"Descriptions of the cruising beast have been broadcast," The Times reported, and "the reward for its return has been multiplied by four."

Calls streamed in from people who claimed to have found the hippo, but they were simply seeking the reward money.

Felix the Cat, Macy's first character balloon, met its demise after floating into a high-tension wire and catching fire.

Despite these difficulties, the balloons were released again in 1932. One hit a plane, sending it on a 5,000-foot plunge. A 22-year-old woman had been piloting the plane over Jamaica, Queens, with her instructor when a 60-foot Tom Cat floated into view "like a sea serpent out of its native element," The Times reported.

"She sent the ship hurtling at the goggle-eyed creature," the article said. "The left wing of the plane smacked against the balloon fabric that was Tom's hide."

The plane plummeted, and the woman nearly fell out, but catastrophe was avoided when the instructor took control and pieces of the balloon "fluttered away from the wing."

Macy's stated that it would not award prize money to aviators who tried to down the balloons with their propeller blades. The company also decided that the tradition of releasing the balloons had to end.

Mickey Mouse made his parade debut in 1934, attracting interest from other countries that, as The Times put it, "have helium and a desire to stage grotesque parades."

The Big Bad Wolf balloon was also a draw, and Macy's planned to send them both to the highest bidders.

In 1942, the president of Macy's, Jack Straus, announced that the parade would be canceled because of the war. He deflated a green dragon balloon and gave the rubber to the military, Macy's recounted on its website; the company eventually donated 650 pounds of balloon rubber. In 1945, when the war ended, the parade returned. Three years later the parade was televised for the first time nationally, on NBC, Macy's said.

"Yes, There Is a Popeye," The Times announced in its 1958 headline after a helium shortage spurred rumors that balloons would not appear at the parade.

The 56-foot-tall Popeye balloon had made its debut a year earlier, his hat periodically filling with rain during that overcast holiday.

After "a lot of calls" with the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company before the 1958 parade, Macy's figured out a way to fill three of its giant, traditional balloons with plain air and support them using cranes.

In 1971, for the first time in the parade's history, wind gusts up to 40 miles per hour and a severe downpour grounded every balloon, The Times reported.

NBC aired clips of balloons from the 1970 parade instead.

The parade has had its share of accidents over the years, such as the time an M&M balloon struck a light pole and injured two people in 2005.

But one of the most shocking accidents occurred when a Cat in the Hat balloon hit a light pole and severely injured a woman in 1997. She was in a coma for 24 days afterward, and finally reached a settlement with the department store, the city and a city contractor in 2001.

Snoopy is just as popular today as he was in 1968, when he made his debut.

He has appeared in over 40 parades - more than any other character - as an aviator, astronaut, skater and more.

When Snoopy was absent from the parade in 2016, Mayor Bill de Blasio promised to bring him back. He returned in 2017 aboard his own float, and will appear again this year as well.

Can't wait for the parade? You can join tens of thousands of vaccinated and masked spectators to watch the balloons inflate on Wednesday, Nov. 24, to get a sneak peek.

The event begins at noon and ends at 6 p.m. and requires proof of vaccination to attend. No umbrellas, backpacks, large bags, alcoholic beverages, drones or e-cigarettes will be allowed.

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Macy's Used to Set the Balloons Free, and Other Thanksgiving Day Parade Facts

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Here is a closer look at the milestones and mishaps involving the helium-filled characters that populate the holiday parade. A hippopotamus soared over the ocean. A cartoon character burst into flames after drifting into a high-tension wire. And a 60-foot cat sent a plane and its two passengers plummeting.

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Inspired by the true story of how the parade started, meet our fictional character Milly and learn about the parade's roots!

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🎪🎡🎠🎈🤡🌈 Milly and The Macy's Parade by Shana Corey and Brett Helquist - Children's Books Read Aloud

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Behind the Scenes: The Road to 34th Street

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Behind the Scenes: The Road to 34th Street

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AN
INSIDER'S
LOOK

Since the first march in 1924, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade ® has delighted audiences & become synonymous with the start of the holiday season. Each production is a testament to the unique artistry & quality craftsmanship of every Parade element that heads down the streets of NYC, making it one of the country's most beloved traditions.

Since the first march in 1924, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade ® has delighted audiences & become synonymous with the start of the holiday season.

Each production is a testament to the unique artistry & quality craftsmanship of every Parade element that heads down the streets of NYC, making it one of the country's most beloved traditions.

AN INSIDER'S LOOK

Since the first march in 1924, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade ® has delighted audiences & become synonymous with the start of the holiday season.

Each production is a testament to the unique artistry & quality craftsmanship of every Parade element that heads down the streets of NYC, making it one of the country's most beloved traditions.

For our 95th Parade, meet some of the talented team that built & created this spectacular celebration in this heartwarming video.

STEP INSIDE
MACY'S PARADE STUDIO The road to 34th street

Inside a 72,000-square-foot warehouse in Moonachie, NJ, a group of more than 30 skilled artists worked year-round to prep the 2022 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade ®.

Macy's Parade Studio -headquarters for all the painters, carpenters, animators and many other experts that build the show's larger-than-life elements-is where all the magic comes together.

Get a glimpse at how our balloon concepts go from sketch to 3D models, how our floats are engineered & more. Plus, there's so much glitter. Check out our video series to see what goes on behind the scenes.

DESIGN

PRODUCTION

PARADE READY

300 POUNDS

This amount of glitter is sprinkled on costumes, floats & more.

50,000+ HOURS OF LABOR

The Parade Studio team works hard to make sure every detail is perfect.

4,200 COSTUMES

The team also designs
& maintains thousands of
looks for Parade participants.

NOW HEAR THIS!

Want even more info on how our historic Parade gets off the ground? Then check out this special episode of the Stuff You Should Know podcast.

Listen Now

ADD TO YOUR WATCH LIST HOW A
SPECIAL
MOMENT
BRINGS JOY

PARADE 101

To safely produce this year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade during this unprecedented time, Macy's partnered with the City and State of New York to create an innovative plan that would continue this treasured tradition.

The safety of participants and spectators is Macy's top priority.

In order to avoid gathering large crowds, the annual production will forgo marching down the traditional 2.5-mile route in Manhattan. Instead it will be reimagined over the course of several days as a television-only event leading up to the live Thanksgiving Day broadcast that will feature the breadth of Macy's signature elements.

Reinvented to safely keep spectators in New York City at home and families nationwide glued to their televisions, the 94th edition of the iconic event ushers in the holiday season with a televised celebration featuring giant character balloons, animated floats, incredible street performances, musical acts and the one and only Santa Claus, broadcast from 34th Street on NBC and Telemundo.

In preparation for this one-of-a-kind celebration, the Macy's team meticulously reviewed every area of the Parade playbook to put in place enhanced health and safety practices that align with CDC guidelines, as well as local and state government protocols. You can learn more about these safety enhancements here.

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Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade - Info & More - Macy's

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Since the first march in 1924, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade ® has delighted audiences & become synonymous with the start of the holiday season. Each production is a testament to the unique artistry & quality craftsmanship of every Parade element that heads down the streets of NYC, making it one of the country's most beloved traditions.

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Fiction: Rettie and the Ragamuffin Parade

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Fiction: Rettie and the Ragamuffin Parade

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This is a fiction book that takes place around the time that the Macy's Parade Started. What's similar and what's different?

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Instantly access over 40,000 of the best books & videos for kids on Epic

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Get unlimited access to 40,000 of the best books, audiobooks, videos, & more for kids 12 and under. Try it free.

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Get An Exclusive First Look At Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Floats

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Behind the Scenes of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

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The History of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

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The History of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

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The History Of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade | Business Insider