Week 46
November 24, 2016
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
Train In/Out: Fairfield, CT
Miles walked: 4.3
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M1 with m.Zuiko 12-40mm PRO, m.Zuiko 40-150mm, m.Zuiko 75-300mm
If all goes as planned this will be the last Magic Monday on a different day of the week. I chose to wait and go in on Thanksgiving Day this week. My daughter attends Mercy College and they have a Manhattan campus. The dean of the business school gifted us with 4 tickets to view the parade from Mercy on the 6th and 7th floor overlooking Herald Square. A once in a lifetime opportunity I could not pass up. My husband, daughter and mother in-law accompanied me on this special edition of Magic Monday. We took a 5:50am train into the city. Earliest Magic Monday ever!
Unfortunately, the pictures from this week are not spectacular. It was overcast, so the grayness of the day did not help. We loved our view from the 7th floor, however we were above most of the large balloons and couldn't see the faces on the balloons. But we certainly had an amazing birdseye view of the parade, something we'll never forget.
Onward.
This was around 7:45am and people were already lined up as we made our way down to 35th & 6th Ave. The parade would not reach these crowds until around 10am.
Three kids sound asleep on a blowup mattress. I can only imagine how early they got there.
Didn't quite understand why a parade needed a quiet zone...
I had to. And it was the only turkey hat of the day that I spotted.
We arrived at Mercy College around 8am.
Our view. This is where the parade ends. You can see H & M on the left, and then farther back you can just make out Foot Locker. In front of Foot Locker is where all the TV stuff happened, where all the perfomances went on that you saw broadcast on NBC. From our classroom, we couldn't see the stage area very well but I popped into the classroom next door and could see a bit better. Couldn't stay in that room, however, because each family was assigned a classroom to spread everyone out.
Performers who did not march in the parade but were at the ending spot to provide early morning entertainment on TV. NBC had to fill about an hour before the actual parade got down to this area.
Macy's decorated windows, the theme is "Believe".
The window that says "Love" - yes, well that is my "Mohawk Man" window. If you are following 52 Magic Mondays regularly, you'll remember that I photographed several "mohawk men" at the Macy's windows this year...to the point where it got a little freaky.
Today I'm in my daughter's college campus building for the first time, and I am realizing that all those special moments I had at the Macy's windows were visible from Mercy College. There is just something special about that for me. :)
Birdseye view of Herald Square.
The opening ceremony on TV was over so here's a view of what happens behind the scenes as they breakdown set stuff to make room for the next performance.
Directly across from our classroom was Macy's and some lucky people who got to watch the parade from the upper floors there.
I popped into the next classroom to get a better view of the Cats performance. Caught a few cats levitating in this photo - ha ha.
A teenage girl was at the window I photographed out of and she had the TV coverage playing on her phone as she watched out the window. So high tech! This is when I realized the TV coverage lagged behind the live performances by around 5 minutes.
Part way through the parade the Mercy staff came in our classroom and turned on the TV for us which was super nice.
The Rockettes!
About 10am the beginning of the parade finally reached our area...so it took an hour for the start of the parade to reach the ending zone.
This image shows how we couldn't really see the faces on the large balloons. This one was not too bad, but most of the floats were more "face down".
Sent this image to my one friend who got really into Pokemon Go app this summer! LOL
Couldn't see the face from our window but we did have the TV. :)
I read The Hungry Catapillar to my daughter all the time when she was little.
This was Trixie the dog. I didn't know Trixie, and personally I found her foldable legs kinda creepy.
So what are these? Snapchat Glasses! One of the other people in the room worked in the tech industry and he got a hold of these glasses which were a very limited release this week. The yellow circles have a camera in them. You put them on and then can tap a little button on the side of the glasses and it will take a 10 second video of whatever you are looking at. It would send the video straight to his phone and then he could post it on Snap Chat. Crazy stuff!
I decided to walk down to the street level to see what kind of view I could get from there. Wish I had done that sooner because the view right out the Mercy College door was not bad!
The parade ended and this guy was definitely out to beat the traffic.
Thought it was funny how much cheaper Hilary was than the Donald.
Gosh, I love the name of this bank. Even better than "Bank of Hope" which I photographed a few weeks ago.
She wrote "A Course in Miracles" which I have not read (yet). Maybe one day. Wish I knew she was in town every Tuesday before...I would have stopped by to meet her.
We met up with my daughter's roommate (wearing the hat) in the city after the parade and she joined us for lunch. They look like cousins, but her roomie is from California and is not a relative.
Not sure what was up with the face paint, but he was certainly friendly for the camera.
My Thanksgiving meal at Brendan's. I have never eaten out on Thanksgiving in my entire life. We actually did a small, traditional Thanksgiving the night before at home, so today everyone ordered whatever they wanted.
Makng our way back to Grand Central, we came upon a very decorated Lord & Taylor.
My favorite Lord & Taylor window.
The lions at the 5th Avenue library were festive.
We popped over to Bryant Park so I could show the family the holiday marketplace and skating rink. It was much bigger than the last time I was here (on Halloween). The tree was not lit yet, probably this week.
This guy was selling these onesie outfits.
Me reflecting in an ornament!
Because it was a holiday, things were not setup as normal in Grand Central. I had to pull out and prop up a newspaper to get my last pic of the day. We left on a 4:02pm train.
And that's a wrap on Thanksgiving in New York City. It was a fun day. Getting up at 4am is not my thing (despite being a morning person). But once we got into the city I was wide awake. I find the city very energizing. Before this project I used to find NYC draining...not anymore.
Until the next Magic Monday!
xo,
~MC
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