The demon gods of Halloween blessed our beautiful city last night with a perfectly timed break in the rain, which let up just as kids began their trick-or-treating after school. The 70-degree night was also favorable for the annual Village Halloween Parade, the largest such celebration in the world.
As is custom, the puppeteer teams working their giant creations led things off, including Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles's fantastic Wild Thing ensemble. Dozens of marching bands and DJs blasting bangers from floats kept the revelers moving all along the mile-long route. And crowds of spectators filled those wide Sixth Avenue sidewalks, taking zillions of photos of the craziness passing by.
The vast majority of costumes at the parade tend to be of the store-bought variety, but there were also plenty of inspired "teams" (two groups of Whistle Blowers, a Yayoi Kusama posse, dental students who went as a mouthful of teeth), and clever homemade get-ups (the person dressed as the cover of Nevermind was extremely popular). Zombies and killer clowns remain popular options, and anything bloody and/or dead, superheroes, and of course those dinosaurs. But for some reason the single most common costume I saw was that Money Heist guy with the Salvador Dali mask and the red jumpsuit.
While the night is always mostly about fun, there were also individuals and groups with political messages. Gays Against Guns brought a large contingent, and anti-Trump sentiment was pretty common throughout. New this year was the pack of "Stand With Hong Kong" Winnie the Poohs, mocking China's president Xi Jinping with their outfits.
