New York City Car Rentals and Thanksgiving Day Parade

United States celebrates Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November. New York city car rentals want you to experience one of the traditions - the Thanksgiving Day Parade sponsored by Macys. Starting at 77th Street, this 2.5-mile parade goes down Central Park West to Columbus Circle and heads down Broadway to Macys Herald Square store at 34th Street.

New York city car rentals say that in the parade that goes whether its rain or shine, youll see:

Clowns
Floats
Marching bands
Celebrities
Famous balloons in the shapes of everyone's favorite cartoon and storybook characters

The main attraction, Santa Claus, makes his grand entrance in an ornate sled at the end of the parade. This parade marks the start of the retail-selling season.

Catching a good spot for the Parade

Be sure you arrive early to get a spot for watching the parade. Some spectators get there by 6:30 a.m.

Here are some prime spots:

From Central Park West: the west side of the street from 70th Street to Columbus Circle and on the east side of the street from 70th to 65th Street.

Columbus Circle: the west side of the street.
Broadway: between 58th and 38th Streets.
34th Street: the south side of the street between Broadway and 7th Avenue.

From Broadway from 34th to 38th Street, there is no public or media access. If you wanted to go on 34th Street from Broadway to 7th Avenue, you can only watch the parade on the south side of these streets.

Getting a Close-up of the Balloons

If you want a closer look at the balloons, visit West Side the night before the parade. Streets around 77th Street and Central Park West are closed for volunteers to prepare the fill the huge balloons. New York city car rentals say its quite a site to see these balloons being blown up.

History

It was 77 years ago when Macy began this parade tradition. In the 1920s, many of Macys department store employees were first-generation immigrants who wanted to bring this type of festival they loved from their old country to their new homeland. Dressed in colorful costumes, the employees marched to Macy's flagship store on 34th in 1924. The inaugural parade featured floats, professional bands and live animals that were borrowed from the Central Park Zoo. The parade was a success. It had more than 25,000 people who attended the parade. Live animals were replaced with large-animal shaped balloons in 1927.

Did you know:

Humpty Dumpty float made its debut in 1926
The Felix the Cat was among the many first huge balloons that appeared in 1927
An old parade tradition was to release the balloons; the people who found the balloons could claim a prize
Walt Disney characters (in the form of giant balloons) joined the parade in 1934
From 1940 1942, the parade was not held due to scarce resources during the war era
When the parade resumed in 1945, the event was televised
Due to a helium shortage in 1958, parade watchers saw the balloons brought down Broadway on cranes
Macy's is the world's second largest consumer of helium
If you laid every parade balloon since 1927 end to end they would stretch from Battery Park City to the Cloisters
Snoopy, Kermit the Frog, and Superman were some of the favorite balloons that appeared from the 1960s to 1980s

New York city car rentals note the following celebrities have made appearances in the parade:

Sid Caesar
Danny Kaye
Howdy Doody
Harpo Marx
Jackie Gleason
Diana Ross
Sammy Davis, Jr.
Stevie Wonder
Tony Bennett
Barry Manilow
NSYNC
Shania Twain
Christina Aguilera

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