When photographer Elizabeth Kahane’s husband asked where in New York they should live following their engagement in 1998, she had a very specific requirement for their marital home: A view of the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. “It’s so funny, looking back, why it was so important to me and why that was my answer. But trust me, it was,” said Kahane, a self-professed parade enthusiast, on a video call.
“I love it so much.” The couple moved into a third-floor apartment on the corner of Central Park West and 64th Street. Its street-facing windows offered the perfect vantage point to watch — and photograph — the procession, which travels down through midtown Manhattan to Macy’s department store on Thanksgiving morning.
The photographer has captured the spectacle almost every year since, missing the parade just twice in over a quarter of a century. Kahane’s images, 160 of which feature in her new book “Come Join the Parade,” depict marching brass bands, pom pom-waving cheerleaders, themed floats and some of the millions of spectators who line the streets. These small human figures give a sense of scale to the photos’ real stars: the iconic, gargantuan balloons.
SpongeBob SquarePants looks manically down at the crowd below him; the Grinch, accompanied by his loyal dog Max, glares menacingly ahead. Thomas the Tank Engine, the Kool-Aid Man and Boss Baby are just some of the dozens of other outsized characters Kahane has pictured floating slowly past.