Under the giant helium balloons bobbing across Manhattan during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday morning, people in the crowd called out to one another.
A year after the virus forced the parade into a single, spectator-free block, the words felt powerful.
“To just be able to be in a social environment, it’s everything!” said Asa Jenkins, 36, a research study coordinator who had brought her two children from Aiken, S.C., for the parade, their first family trip since the pandemic began.
The parade, which began in 1924 and has been canceled only rarely, such as during World War II, was back in its full 2.5-mile glory.
Simeon Guyton, 19, a baton twirler with the Hampton University Marching Force, said the Virginia troupe had spent much of the last year practicing online.
Rebecca Mattoni, who lives on the Upper West Side, said that before the pandemic, she typically hosted a dozen people for Thanksgiving.
They stood beside her, having just flown in from El Salvador, where they live, to see their daughter for the first time since before the pandemic began.
A giant alligator — at 60 feet, the longest float in parade history, according to Macy’s — crawled down the parade route courtesy of the Louisiana Office of Tourism; not far away, a replica Mount Rushmore was promenaded alongside people dressed as anglers and hikers, courtesy of the South Dakota Department of Tourism.
Dr.
Gabriel Vazquez III of the New York City Parks Department’s Mounted Unit and his American spotted draft horse, Apollo, marched in the parade.