The
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is an annual parade presented by the U.S.
chain store business Macy's. The tradition started in 1924, tying it
for the second-oldest Thanksgiving parade in the United States along
with America's Thanksgiving Parade in Detroit, with both parades four
years younger than the 6abc Dunkin' Donuts Thanksgiving Day Parade in
Philadelphia. The three-hour Macy's event is held in New York City
starting at 9:00 a.m. EST on Thanksgiving Day.
In the 1920s, many of Macy's department store employees were
first-generation immigrants. Proud of their new American heritage, they
wanted to celebrate the United States parade of Thanksgiving with the
type of festival their parents had loved in Europe.
In 1924, the parade (originally known as the Macy's Christmas Parade
and later the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Christmas Parade) was staged by
the store. Employees and professional entertainers marched from 145th
Street in Harlem to Macy's flagship store on 34th Street dressed in
vibrant costumes. There were floats, professional bands and live animals
borrowed from the Central Park Zoo. At the end of that first parade, as
has been the case with every parade since, Santa Claus was welcomed
into Herald Square.
At this first parade, however, the Jolly Old Elf was enthroned on the
Macy's balcony at the 34th Street store entrance, where he was then
"crowned" "King of the Kiddies." With an audience of over a quarter of a
million people, the parade was such a success that Macy's declared it
would become an annual event.
Anthony "Tony" Frederick Sarg loved to work with marionettes from an
early age. After moving to London to start his own marionette business,
Sarg moved to New York City to perform with his puppets on the street.
Macy's heard about Sarg's talents and asked him to design a window
display of a parade for the store.
Sarg's large animal-shaped balloons, produced by the Goodyear Tire and
Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio, replaced the live animals in 1927 when
the Felix the Cat balloon made its debut. Felix was filled with air, but
by the next year, helium was used to fill the expanding cast of
balloons.
At the finale of the 1928 parade, the balloons were released into the
sky where they unexpectedly burst. The following year they were
redesigned with safety valves to allow them to float for a few days.
Address labels were sewn into them, so that whoever found and mailed
back the discarded balloon received a gift from Macy's
Through the 1930s, the Parade continued to grow, with crowds of over 1
million lining the parade route in 1933. The first Mickey Mouse balloon
entered the parade in 1934. The annual festivities were broadcast on
local New York radio from 1932 through 1941, and resumed in 1945 through 1951.
The parade was suspended 1942–1944 during World War II, owing to the need for rubber and helium in the war effort.
The parade resumed in 1945 using the route that it followed until 2008.
The parade became known nationwide after being prominently featured in
the 1947 film, Miracle on 34th Street, which included footage of the 1946 festivities. The event was first broadcast on network television in 1948 (see below).
By this point the event, and Macy's sponsorship of it, were
sufficiently well-known to give rise to the colloquialism "Macy's Day
Parade". Since 1984, the balloons have been made by Raven Industries of Sioux Falls, SD.
Macy's also sponsors the smaller Celebrate the Season Parade in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
held two days after the main event. Other cities in the US also have
parades on Thanksgiving, but they are not run by Macy's. The nation's
oldest Thanksgiving parade (the Gimbels parade, which has had many
sponsors over the years is now known as 6abc Dunkin' Donuts Thanksgiving
Day Parade) was first held in Philadelphia in 1920. Other cities
include the McDonald's Thanksgiving Parade of Chicago, Illinois and
parades in Plymouth, Massachusetts; Seattle, Washington; Houston, Texas;
Detroit, Michigan; and Fountain Hills, Arizona. A parade is also held
at the two U.S. Disney theme parks. There is even a 2nd Thanksgiving
balloon parade within the New York metropolitan area, the UBS balloon
parade in Stamford, CT, 30 miles away. This parade is held the Sunday
before Thanksgiving to not compete with the New York parade and usually
does not duplicate any balloon characters.
The classic "Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade" logo
was, with one exception, last used in 2005. For 2006 a special variant
of the logo was used. Every year since a new logo has been used for each
parade. The logos however are seen rarely, if at all, on television as
NBC has used its own logo with the word "Macy's" in script and
"Thanksgiving Day Parade" in a bold font. The logos are assumed to be
for Macy's use only, such as on the Grandstand tickets and the ID badges
worn by parade staff. The Jackets worn by parade staff still bear the
original classic parade logo, this being the only place where that logo
can be found.
New safety measures were incorporated in 2006 to prevent accidents
and balloon related injuries. One measure taken was installation of wind
measurement devices to alert parade organizers to any unsafe conditions
that could cause the balloons to behave erratically. Also, parade
officials implemented a measure to keep the balloons closer to the
ground during windy conditions. If wind speeds are forecast to be higher
than 34 miles per hour, all balloons are removed from the parade.
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