The avenue closed from Spring to 16th: giant puppets swaying over the crowd, skeletons on poles, drummers, fifty thousand marchers in costume and two million watching, the works lit on the building fronts.
Puppeteer Ralph Lee began the Village Halloween Parade in 1973 as a walk through Greenwich Village for his children and neighbors. Jeanne Fleming has directed it since 1981. It moves up Sixth Avenue from Spring Street to 16th Street with giant puppets, bands and anyone in costume.
Source · Village Halloween Parade ↗
Enormous rod puppets carried above the marchers, skeleton banners, drum corps, floats with lit skulls, spectators ten deep behind barricades, the avenue lit orange from end to end, the Jefferson Market clock tower. Mood: october 31, eight p.m.. Everything is procedural geometry with painted surfaces; nothing is a scan or a photograph. The room is an interpretation, and it hangs the New Yorkers the census recorded at this place first.