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NEW YORK — Thursday is the 91st annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. Some three-and-a-half million people will line the streets of Manhattan to watch, while another 50 million people will be watching from home.
KSL's Ashley Kewish traveled to New Jersey where all the parade planning takes place for a sneak peek of this year's new floats.
One of the first balloon to be filled is a grumpy face you may recognize. The giant Grinch balloon increases in size as balloon handlers fill it with helium. The Grinch balloon is just one of 26 giant balloons that will be making its way along the parade route.
John Piper is the vice president of Macy's Parade Studio. He's been in charge of the parade for the past 37 years.
"I don't get to watch the parade the same way you all get to watch in Utah," he said. "I'm right in the thick of things basically, making sure everything is getting into the parade smoothly and all the balloons are where they need to be."
Every float is meticulously designed, some taking as long as nine months before they're completed. There are a few floats Piper is particularly excited about this year.
"We're about to go into the sparkly realm of Nickelodeon's 'Shimmer and Shine,' Piper said as he boarded one of his favorite floats. "The two genies can create some wonderful things when maybe some not so wonderful things seem to happen."
But before the real parade begins, all the floats and balloons have to make quite the journey.
"After 90 years, you kind of learn how to do it," Piper said. "In the evening before, all the floats get lined up here in New Jersey and all the police and the Port Authority help us in a giant convoy. We take them through the Lincoln Tunnel, so all these floats have to be collapsed so they will fit and then make their way up to the upper west side and then my team with six cranes assemble them all night long."
You can watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on KSL TV beginning at 9 a.m.
