NYC Halloween Parade Information
NYC Village Halloween Parade 2012
New York Village Halloween Parade Overview
All Those in Costume are Welcome to Join Hundreds of Puppets, 53 Bands of Different Types of Music, Dancers and Artists, and Thousands of other New Yorkers in Costumes of their Own Creation in the Nation's Most Wildly Creative Public Participatory Event in the Greatest City in the World!
For all those in costume is on 6th Avenue South of Spring Street and North of Canal between 6:30 and 8:30 p.m.
Alert ! ONLY enter the line-up on 6th Ave. from the East and South between Canal and Spring.
Watch it in person on 6th Avenue from Spring Street to 21st Street from 7 - 10 p.m. Live on NY 1 Television from 8 - 9:30 p.m.
Halloween NYC Parade Route
Don't bring your car to the Parade!
If you are coming in a group, meet somewhere away from the Line-up and walk to the line-up together.
The Parade takes until 8:15 to move out. Join the Parade at the beginning and approach the Line-up only from the South and the East.
Streets West of 6th are closed by the Police.
Take These Trains To These Stations
| A | West 4 Street |
| C, E | West 4 Street, Spring Street |
| B, D | West 4 Street, Broadway/Lafayette St. |
| F | 23 St, 14 St, West 4 St. B'way/Lafayette St. |
| N, R | 23 St, 14.Union Sq, 8 St, Prince St |
| 1, 9 | Christopher Street |
| 2, 3 | 14 Street |
| 4, 5 | 14 Street/Union Square |
| 6 | 23 St, 14 St/Union Sq, Astor Place |
| PATH | 9th St, 14th St, 23rd St |
24 Hour NYC Travel Information: 718-330-1234
You Are Invited To Be In New York's Halloween Parade
Follow these 5 Simple Steps for Joining the Parade, the largest public participatory event in the greatest city in world!
- Be Creative - Wear Your Costume ! Only costumed marchers are allowed in the Parade.
- Show Up on Sixth Ave bet. Spring & Broome Sts.
- Arrive between 6:30 and 8:30 or you might miss the Parade! The subway is the best way to get there, parking is always difficult and the Parade makes it even worse.
- Find your Friends, Good Music or A Group to March With
- Follow the Crowd Up Sixth Avenue (please do not go down Sixth Avenue, the police will stop you!)
When You Get to the End of the Parade at 22nd Street continue on to our party Joonbug's 9th Annual Masquerade Halloween Ball at Capitale
Don't have a costume? ...then volunteer to carry a puppet!
How To Volunteer
Yes, its puppet season again, and 38th Annual Village Halloween Parade is searching for some people who can pull a few strings for us. Whether you are a veteran of previous Parades, or a newcomer who wants to see the Parade from the inside this year, we welcome you to come and perform with us. No previous experience with 20 foot tall glowing caterpillars or dancing skeletons is necessary.
HALLOWEEN NYC PARADE FACT SHEET 2012
Now in its 39th year, New York's Village Halloween Parade is...
- The nation's largest public Halloween celebration
- Named as The Greatest Event on Earth by Festivals International for October 31
- Attended by over 2 million people, seen by over 1 million on TV
- The nation's only major night Parade
- Listed as one of the 100 Things to do Before You Die
New York's 39th Annual Village Halloween Parade Theme 2012:
THE " i " OF THE BEHOLDER
What is it about the Disembodied Eye that is at once so disturbing and yet so strangely familiar?
Tradition associates the all-seeing eye with inescapable power and authority--coldly remote, yet as near to us as the back of a dollar bill. From the Masonic Eye-in-the-Pyramid, to the Thousand-eyed Avalokateswara (whose eyes emanate from his palms), to the Glowing Eye of HAL 9000, the disembodied eye evokes the ancient awe of omniscience and the modern anxiety of surveillance.
But all this has suddenly started to change. Lewis Hyde recounts a tale in which Coyote the Trickster learns to throw his eyeballs high into a tree to sight distant prey on the horizon. We, too, are learning Coyote's trick of remote viewing, sending our eyes out into the world and pixel-by-pixel crafting a parallax view of ourselves. Where we once hid from Big Brother's ubiquitous gaze, now--with every Youtube upload, with every Facebook post, and every Google (Go ogle!) search, we revel in our own reflections, no matter how mundane. The anonymous eye of authority now lies in the palm of our hand. "They" have become "We", and we have become eyes. Like the eye-covered body of Argus in Greek myth, we have become a matrix of ever-wakeful omnivorous observers.
But in the end, Coyote's eyes get stuck in the tree. Having lost vision of his own, he stumbles on with borrowed eyes.
As the technology of Facebook and Flickr offers us the possibility of seeing everything, we risk seeing nothing but ourselves, eyes wide shut, in a collective feast of Narcissism. Argus, for all his vigilance, is slain by Hermes (God of Communication), and for his sacrifice, is turned into a peacock.
This year the Village Halloween Parade stares back at the disembodied eye, as we celebrate I of the Beholder. Parade artists Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles of Superior Concept Monsters will lead a cloud of floating eyes up Sixth Avenue, inviting everyone to join, both physically and virtually.
We are calling for video images of your eyes (one eye, actually, close up) to be projected onto our Great Eyeball high in the Parade sky,
in a succession of images at once intimate and anonymous. Send your entry to halloweeneyeballs@gmail.com
We will post them on YouTube so everyone can see each others!
After years of being electronically ogled, captured, and youtubed en route, we are returning your gaze, with a thousand borrowed eyes, and with a lot of help at our annual puppet workshops in October.
Come and lend a hand or an eye at www.halloween-nyc.com/volunteer.
Here's looking at you, kids . . .
Jeanne Fleming - Director
Alex Kahn - Master Puppeteer
Halloween NYC Costume Workshops
Every weekend in September and October prior to the Parade, Village Halloween Parade Puppet Building workshops will be hosted by the Official Puppeteers of the Parade, Superior Concept Monsters, at our Puppetry Workshop in the Hudson Valley near Rhinebeck, NY. In return for your help, you get lunch and dinner, a spectacular walk to the Hudson River and a bonfire.
Spend the day or the weekend out of the City and in our Puppet Barn...there is always a big pot of soup, some hot cider, tea, coffee and cookies to fill out a day of good company while learning techniques and actually constructing the puppets that will appear at the head of the Parade on Halloween night.
These workshops are free and open to the public, but spaces are limited, so you must pre-register by signing up to be a Volunteer. You must provide your own transportation and housing if you plan to stay the weekend.
Vehicle Guidelines for Halloween NYC
The tradition of the Village Halloween Parade is to invite anyone in costume to join the parade -- and typically 20,000 to 30,000 people take advantage of that invitation every year! Because of the number of costumed celebrants on foot, and the complications of people in costume, distracted, having a good time, sometimes with limited vision due to a costume, and stopping and entertaining the crowd on the sidewalks -- we regret that only a limited number of motorized vehicles are allowed in the Village Halloween Parade.
Those limited spaces are usually given to the handful of sponsors who support the parade, as a thank-you for their support. And even those vehicles must meet strict rules about the size, sound systems, capacity, and contents of the vehicle; and require prior arrangement with the parade to get official permits.
Finally, sorry to say this, but because our first concern is for the safety and enjoyment of the general public, motorized vehicles that just 'show-up' at the parade will be kindly requested not to join the celebration.
Thanks for your understanding and, Happy Halloween!
