New York City’s Village Halloween Parade comes back to life, saved by a serious fan

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A typical sight during the 2019 Village Halloween Parade in New York City.

Theo Wargo/Getty Images

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Theo Wargo/Getty Images

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Jeanne Fleming, artistic director of the Village Halloween Parade, faced daunting challenges before an angel donor saved this year’s event.

Courtesy of the Village Halloween Parade

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Courtesy of the Village Halloween Parade

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At Rokeby in Red Hook, N.Y., parade volunteers work on oversize puppets inspired by children’s drawings

Courtesy of the Village Halloween Parade

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Courtesy of the Village Halloween Parade

At Rokeby in Red Hook, N.Y., parade volunteers work on oversize puppets inspired by children’s drawings

Courtesy of the Village Halloween Parade

Patricia Valdez, who drove to Rokeby from her home in Harlem, was busy on a recent weekend, glue gun in hand, building part of a puppet out of cardboard. Valdez has been going to the puppet raising at Rokeby since 2016, and also marches in the parade, carrying one of the giant puppets.

«I like being part of something creative and I like that it’s getting back into the community,» she says. «When you’re in the parade, you’re seeing smiling faces, you’re seeing awe. And how can you not feel good, knowing that you had something to do with that?»

The parade’s COVID precautions this year are twofold. Marchers have been asked to wear medical masks while they’re waiting in the staging area, but can take them off once they start on the mile-long walk uptown. Spectators along what is usually a packed Sixth Avenue are urged to wear masks, since social distancing is basically impossible. Many spectators wear costumes, often including a non-medical mask. In years past, more than two million parade watchers have jammed the sidewalk along the parade route.

«One of my favorite puppeteers is not coming, because she doesn’t feel safe,» Fleming notes. «Other people are not concerned at all.» Attitudes, she notes, span «the entire gamut of everything the nation is feeling.»

Fleming said she decided to select comedian Randy Rainbow as this year’s grand marshal because his YouTube song parodies kept the nation laughing throughout the pandemic. Fleming admits the satirist scored major points when he released «Mr. Biden,» a video parody of «Mr. Sandman» including lines like:

Mr. Biden, bring my vaccine

I want to trick or treat when we hit Halloween.

Rainbow, adorned in a specially made rainbow coat and his trademark pink glasses, will ride along with six dancers on a float designed by Richard Prowse, a retired Broadway set designer.

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Feldman calls the parade «the best medicine for our city.»

«People get to be themselves, maybe the most extreme versions of themselves, wherever their imagination takes them version of themselves,» he says. «They don’t judge, they don’t expect to be judged. And that’s indicative of what makes our city a wonderful place.»

Adds Fleming, «It’s the night that people get to come out and tell their stories, whatever their story is. That’s the role that it plays. Can you imagine two years of shutting ourselves in, without having this night of celebration?»

That would be pretty scary, indeed.

• Halloween