100 Thanksgiving Parades Since 1924: 5 Then-and-Now Photos, Like the Years Balloons Were Let Go Over the City

The first parade stepped off on November 27, 1924, and there was not a single balloon in it. Marchers in costumes walked about six miles, from Harlem to Herald Square, with floats, bands and animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo: elephants, camels, bears and monkeys. Santa Claus came at the end. In its first years it was called a Christmas parade, because it opened the holiday season, even though it marched on Thanksgiving morning.

The zoo animals lasted three parades. They frightened the children along the route, so in 1927 they were replaced by something that couldn’t roar: giant balloons designed by Tony Sarg, a puppeteer and illustrator. The first ones were filled with plain air and marched on poles held by handlers. From 1928 on, helium did the lifting, and the balloons have floated over the crowd ever since.

The first route ran about six miles, from 145th Street and Convent Avenue in Harlem down to Herald Square. Today the parade starts at 77th Street and Central Park West and covers about two and a half miles, still ending at Herald Square. One star has stayed the same for decades: the turkey. In 1957 it flew over the avenue as a balloon. Now it rolls down the route as a float.

After the 1928 parade, nobody deflated the balloons. They were let go over the city, fitted with valves that leaked slowly, so they could stay up for as long as a week. Whoever found one and brought it back got a reward. A tiger balloon came down on a roof in Richmond Hill, Queens, and the neighbors who climbed up after it played tug-of-war until it was in pieces. Others drifted far past the city, and a few were lost at sea.

The release went on until 1932, when a student pilot flew toward a balloon over Queens. It wrapped itself around the plane’s left wing, and the plane went into a tailspin. The instructor on board got it back under control, and both landed safely. That was the last year the balloons were let go.

The parade has been called off only once, and it lasted three years. In 1942, 1943 and 1944, the rubber and helium the balloons needed went to country resources instead. Before the first canceled year, the company’s president, Jack Straus, deflated a dragon balloon in front of City Hall and donated the rubber. The parade came back in 1945, and it has marched every Thanksgiving since.

The biggest balloons need 50 to 60 handlers each, walking in step and holding the lines. The wind decides the rest. Since 1998, New York City has had a rule: the big balloons don’t fly if sustained winds top 23 miles per hour or gusts top 34. On a gusty morning, handlers can bring the balloons down lower, closer to the street, which makes them look even bigger from the curb.

The Reddit user who shared the photo on the left titled it “My dad watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, 1947.” The blanket and the knit cap tell you how cold that November morning was. On the right, 64 years later, a kid watches from the best seat on the route, a parent’s shoulders. The good spots along Central Park West still fill up hours before the first balloon comes into view.

The parade first appeared on local New York television in 1946 and went national within two years. Since 1952, one network has carried it every Thanksgiving morning, which is how most of the country knows it: from the couch, with something in the oven. The hosts sit above the crowd at Herald Square, like Betty White and Lorne Greene in 1965.

Marching bands apply about a year and a half ahead, and only around ten are chosen each year. For the 100th parade, ten bands made it, picked from more than 100 applicants. Many of them come from high schools and colleges far from New York, and they play the whole route in plumed hats and white gloves.

The day before the parade, the balloons are laid out on the streets around the American Museum of Natural History, between 77th and 81st Streets, and filled with helium under nets. New Yorkers call it Inflation Eve. It’s free to walk past, and the balloons lie at eye level, half full and pinned down. For many families, it has become a tradition of its own.

The most famous runaway was a blue hippo. Released after the 1931 parade, it was swept past the Empire State Building, within inches of it by one account, and then drifted toward Brooklyn. It was never found, and the best guess is that it came down over the Atlantic. Ninety-five years later, the hippo is coming back: a new one is set to march in the 100th parade.

The 100th parade steps off at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, November 26, from 77th Street and Central Park West, and follows the route of about two and a half miles to Herald Square. It is set to have a record 100 inflatables. Around 3.5 million people usually watch from the sidewalks, and most of the country watches on TV, the way it has since the 1940s.