Once again, New York City threw the biggest Halloween party on the planet, as an estimated two million people packed Greenwich Village for the 45th annual costume parade. The temperature was spectacularly pleasant, dance music blasted from dozens of giant floats, the spectators were crowded in along the entire route, marching bands came one after the other, and costumed revelers of wildly varying degrees of effort and skill made their way up Sixth Avenue from Spring to 16th streets.
Evil clowns seemed to be the single most popular costume this year. Trump also made many unflattering appearances along the route, though thankfully the Ruth Bader Ginsburgs and other superheroes were out in force as well. Zombies, murderers, minions, teddy bears, bunnies both cute and terrifying, Bob Rosses, bits of NYC infrastructure and landmarks, sexy everything, Marios and Luigis, inflatable beasts, Miss Columbia, characters from Disney, Star Wars, Bob's Burgers, Simpsons, The Wizard of Oz... really everyone and everything you can imagine was out of the streets last night.
As is the custom, swarms of fantastic giant puppets led the mass procession. Overt political protest groups, such as Gays Against Guns, marched amid the revelry, and a sense of anger and alarm over the current state of the world was palpable in much of the messaging during the night. There was a large and highly visible NYPD presence throughout the area, but this was expected as the NYPD had announced they would be increasing their police presence this year.
Click through for a look at one of the greatest spectacles to hit the NYC streets year after year.
