The Annual Greenwich Village Halloween Parade
New York City’s Most Eclectic Event Has an LGBT Bent
© Kat Long
Oct 26, 2008
The Village Halloween Parade, an annual tradition since 1973, didn’t begin as a gay event. But its birth in Greenwich Village—New York’s original gayborhood—and fabulously creative costumes make the parade, as fans affectionately call it, “Christmas for queers.”
The parade originated as a small and spontaneous celebration. Ralph Lee, an artisan and mask-maker who lived Greenwich Village in 1973, was asked to show his work in a local gallery. Lee, though, had intended for his masks to be worn, not simply displayed under glass. At the same time, a rash of news stories reporting hidden needles and safety pins in Halloween candy surfaced; parents were afraid to let their children trick-or-treat at strangers’ homes. To solve both problems, Lee had his children and their friends wear his masks, and took them around the Village apartments of their parents for treats. A Village Halloween tradition was born.
Every parade since 1973 has featured giant handmade puppets operated by costumed New Yorkers, in a tribute to the original masks of founder Ralph Lee, and a million more New Yorkers dressed up in their weirdest and wildest costumes. Anyone in a costume can march in the parade, operate the puppets, play musical instruments or give out candy to the thousands of onlookers along the parade route.
Gay Halloween Traditions
By 1981, approximately 100,000 people participated, says Jeanne Fleming, the parade’s Artistic and Producing Director. “The gay community really jumped in and took part, because the parade was celebrating the quirkiness and diversity of their neighborhood,” she says. After the parade ended each year, “everyone would go to Christopher Street [in the heart of the gay Village] to party and hang out. Some people had the most fabulous costumes and scenes on the sidewalk.”
Fleming remembers that gay men and women really embraced the parade, “because they could be who they really were. In the 1970s, you just didn’t see gay people in the mainstream. It was a very big deal.” The parade became a place for gay men and women to express themselves freely in a casual environment.
In fact, gays usually thought of the parade as a straight event, while straight people tended to associate it with the drag queens and leather daddies who took part in it. “There’s always been a huge gay influence” in the parade, Fleming recalls. She never accepts money from cigarette companies or business that have anti-gay practices. “The parade is uncensored,” she states flatly.
This Year’s Parade
This year the theme is “Ghost,” in which party animals celebrate the “one night when our ancestral spirits can return and walk among us.” Hundreds of larger-than-life puppets, musicians, bands, performers and personalities will join the thousands of marchers. If this year continues the trend, the Village Halloween Parade will continue to be one of the singular holiday events in the world.
