Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy
The Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade returned in full force yesterday afternoon, with hundreds of costumed pups and their humans marching along Avenue B before a festive crowd.
Pop culture ruled the afternoon, with nods to "Wicked," "Alien," (below) "Midsommar" and Jinu from "KPop Demon Hunters," among many others.
Four dogs from Pup Starz, Social Tees and the ASPCA served as Parade Grand Marshals, spotlighting the importance of adoption.
This 35th edition of the Dog Parade also included a festival block for participants on Sixth Street between Avenue B and Avenue C, where sponsor Stella & Chewy's handed out treats for four-legged guests.
Dan Schachner from the Puppy Bowl emceed once again, this time channeling Bob Barker (below with organizer Fern Watt), as a panel of judges reviewed 20 finalists on a stage set up in the middle of Tompkins Square Park.
In the end, top honors went to Charlie, Emily and Zoey, a trio who transformed Tompkins Square Park into a “cereal killer” crime scene — complete with a human Snap, Crackle and Pop. Their clever concept earned their pups the grand prize: a year's supply of free dog food.
Here are more scenes from the afternoon...
11 comments:
If you’re going to do the Bob Barker impression right, you need the Marantz EC-12B by Superscope or at least a Sony ECM-51.
Unpopular opinion time: The Halloween dog parade has become a spectacle of entitlement and hype. Besides the massive flood of people descending on a neighborhood they look completely lost in, the dogs themselves half the time look shaken by all the chaos, and the cross-section of attendees skews heavily towards the mommy-and-daddy-pay-my-rent crowd.
Even attempting to get through the madness on Sunday--and there was SO much of it, taking up many, many streets people use to get to work and to get around--was an exercise in swimming through the TikTok generation as they remained completely oblivious to their surroundings to make sure they recorded and shared every minute detail of the day.
Next year, I hope they do a better job making the neighborhood accessible to people who actually live here because it's beginning to border on SantaCon vibes.
Heard that sentiment from several people yesterday...
It's hard to be grumpy given how happy and fun everyone is having - and the creativity on display...but yeah, this has gone from a manageable event to behemoth. It's crazy how much of the neighborhood gets shut down. Does this make any money? If so, can we push it into our park that has to host this? If we used this money to make the dog run so freggin' amazing (and not dusty) that all of the dog owners stopped letting their dogs out in other parts of the park that could be a win. Harvey is out here getting $400k for the dog run without a parade...what can these folks do?
EVGrumps are gonna Grump, what can you do?
Once a year our neighborhood is the venue of an event that brings pure joy to everyone involved. I saw so many smiling faces, happy dogs and sudden bursts of laughter yesterday. Do you know what dogs like less than a parade? To be left at home alone!
Yes, the neighborhood is a mess for one Sunday afternoon in the fall and it can be a minor inconvenience to some. But that's a small sacrifice for something that makes so many so happy.
The fact that some folks looked out of place in the EV is more reason to celebrate this event. We get to show off our neighborhood and offer something to other New Yorkers and beyond. The whole idea of a parade is to bring folks together, not to bemoan them!
The loudness of many two-legged attendees and chaos for dogs is unsettling. Dogs don’t like being screamed at! I suppose it’s a hazard of drawing such a big crowd beyond dog people.
The complaints around the crowds are reasonable -- those streets were packed -- but your gatekeeping in who's allowed to attend is pretty off-putting.
And inaccurate. I'm way too old for TikTok, pay my own rent, and know the neighborhood well (we walk here weekly from LES), and I thought it was a blast and adorable. Just crowded.
very obnoxious and annoying day in the neighborhood and the dogs do not like it!
The crowds are annoying but unlike Santa Con I didn’t see any untoward behavior (others can correct me if so) but a lot of smiles. It’s 1 day a year, personally I don’t mind it but to each their own. Santa Con I think everyone (except certain bars here) would agree is a real problem.
I came for the photos of cute dogs...All I got was a bunch of photos of people wearing stupid hats...
When the East River Park ESCR construction is finally done (?) and with any liability insurance issues properly funded (use the blog search engine to review the parade history) maybe the parade can return to the Park? It was kind of nuts out there on Sunday. I assume the bars did well?
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