It's young. It's old. It's male. It's female. It's straight, gay, Latino, Asian, Caribbean, Italian, Jewish, Irish, black, white, red, gold, silver, green, pink, and blue. It's bewitched, bewigged, beaded, braided, feathered, speckled, spangled. It's New York's Village Halloween Parade, and its queen is Jeanne Fleming.
From humble originsit began in 1973 as a group of neighborhood trick-or-treaters led by Fleming's friend, puppeteer Ralph Leethe parade has become the largest public Halloween celebration in the country, with 60,000 marchers and two million spectators. Anyone in costume can participate (if you don't have a costume, you can volunteer to carry a puppet). And though Halloween was brought to this country by Irish immigrants, the parade has become "an American institution," says Fleming. "Everyone is marching to different drummers"often literally, as when disciplined Irish bagpipers (who play
The Munsters' theme) are followed by Brazilian Carnival percussionists, "who might play their instruments lying down."
Trick or TreatThe all-inclusive philosophy makes fundraising a challenge. "Sponsors often want a certain demographic. My demographic is New York," Fleming says. "Some won't touch [the parade] because it has gay people, for instance, while some gay sponsors won't touch it because it's not gay enough."
Fleming doesn't permit title sponsors. "It would destroy the pure relationship, the basic trust, to have everyone marching in the service of, say, Nike," she explains. She does allow sponsors in the parade, "but they can't just hand out stuff. It's like trick-or-treat: They have to do a trick to get the treat of the audience liking them." Thus, one year, JetBlue paraded 50 people dressed as airplanes performing "flight formations," and another time Volkswagen launched its new convertible by parading dressed-up cars, including one as a bubble bath.
The fact that the parade is always held on October 31 is another challenge. "This year it's on a Tuesday, and sponsors aren't as interested in midweek events," Fleming notes. "But part of our philosophy is not to be co-opted by the workweek. Halloween is a Celtic holiday. It's about turning all the conventions of everyday life upside down."
Born AgainFleming's most memorable Halloween happened in 2001. Despite talk of cancellation and even death threats ("People thought the parade shouldn't happen because Halloween is about death"), Mayor Rudolph Giuliani decided to hold it anyway, to display New York's post-9/11 resilience. Traditionally, dancing skeletons lead the pageant, but Fleming decided that would be "too heavy," and instead went with a puppet of a fledgling phoenix to symbolize rebirth; spectators facing south could see Ground Zero's smoke rising behind the phoenix's head.
"We did the whole thing on trust. We had no money," Fleming says. "There were sharpshooters on the roofs because nobody knew what might happen. When we started, you could hear a pin drop."
"It was incredibly healing," she continues. "It was one of those moments where we realized we couldn't do muchwe're not doctors or nurses, or people who clean up steel. We realized that as artists, our role was to perform this ritual for the city."
Village Halloween ParadeHow long planning: 27 years
Economic impact: $60 million per year
Volunteers: 1,000
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