Photographer Jill Lynne has shot New York City’s Greenwich Village Halloween Parade since year one. It has grown exponentially with over 2,000 participants by the second year, and 250,000 by the fifth, she wrote a first person account of the history of the parade for Vanity Fair and shared a few choice images.
I had heard buzz about the first Halloween Parade before those old-style mimeographed fliers enlisting neighborhood participation appeared.
It was a crisp, chilly autumn evening. As everyone gathered expectantly in the Westbeth courtyard there was a sensory excitement. A sense of creative freedom prevailed, and an unexpected enormous turnout from the community and their friends arrived. There were artists, families, drag queens, and proud members of the L.G.B.T. community.
There was a feeling of medieval pageantry, with some carrying tall weeds and others glowing candles. As if paying homage, the parade would stop at live vignettes staged along the way. Beneath the eerily silhouetted windows of the Jefferson Market Library, witches beckoned the group forth.
The grand finale of the Halloween Parade happened at the colorfully illuminated Washington Square Arch, which was “inhabited” by spooks and spirits.
Time felt like it stood still during that very first Halloween Parade. The night felt episodic, and it was exhilarating. Wondrous, magical, and surreal, I was hooked.
I photographed what would become the annual Halloween Parade until 1988. By that time, the original sense of community was gone. Instead, enthusiastic hordes descended from all over, producing a crush of people.
In a quasi-continuation of the original community sensibility, on Halloween eve, an organic grassroots, informal “Children’s Parade” has developed in the heart of the beautiful West Village streets.
In small-town style, petites and parents trick-or-treat, visiting town houses, stoops, brownstones, and boutiques ornately decorated with ghosts, rattling skeletons, spiderwebs, horrific monsters, and smiling jack-o’-lanterns. Generously they offer up candy, apples, and giggles, happily filling overflowing goody bags.
We wish you all a wicked good Halloween!
(Photographs, Jill Lynne; via Vanity Fair)
The post #TBT: Photographer Jill Lynne Shot the First Greenwich Village Halloween Parade Over 40 Years Ago appeared first on World of Wonder.