Million(s) Pack Streets for Thanksgiving Parade

Uno, the beagle who won Best in Show at the Westminster Dog Show, on the Peanuts float... (Photograph by zodak on Flickr)

« PREVIOUS

The beautiful weather made yesterday's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade the hot ticket: The NY Post reports 3.5 million people lined the streets to enjoy the balloons, floats, and performers, while the Daily News put the spectator figure at around 1 million. Many parade watchers were waiting since early morning (4 a.m., 5 a.m.), staking out good spots to watch the 9 a.m. parade.

Reader zodak has some terrific photographs of parade action in the air on the ground. Also, if you saw the Energizer Bunny break away at the end of the parade--balloons are turn onto 7th Avenue and get deflated, but the Bunny kept going on West 34th towards 8th--CityRoom explains that Energizer wanted to, in the words a spokesperson, "celebrate him by bringing his first commercial to life." One 10-year-old onlooker was delighted, "It ran away because it doesn’t want to be with the rest of the balloons!" but eventually the balloon was deflated. A child said, "Bunny’s melting!"