History of the Thanksgiving Day Parade | History — Transcript

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1. 0:00[Music]
2. 0:01The Roaring 20s was an era of Vaudeville
3. 0:04Flappers speak easys and ricking fun
4. 0:07these decadent times were especially
5. 0:09good for the Macy's department store by
6. 0:121924 Macy's had expanded to cover an
7. 0:15entire city block from Broadway in heral
8. 0:18square all the way to 7th Avenue the
9. 0:21store just expanded to become the
10. 0:22world's largest store they want to do
11. 0:24something to celebrate it was
12. 0:25Thanksgiving what could we do and of
13. 0:28course the idea of a parade came about
14. 0:30just 2 weeks before Thanksgiving Macy's
15. 0:32president Herbert Strauss announced that
16. 0:34New York would be treated to a holiday
17. 0:36event like nothing the city had seen
18. 0:39before the original Parade route began
19. 0:41on 145th Street and Convent Avenue in
20. 0:44Harlem and was nearly 3 times as long as
21. 0:47it is today and it was only two blocks
22. 0:49long that first parade it wasn't a very
23. 0:51long parade but it went for 6 miles it
24. 0:54went you know all over the place it took
25. 0:56a lot of right turns left turns winding
26. 0:59its way down to the Macy's store in
27. 1:01Herold Square where it still ends
28. 1:03today by the time the parade reached
29. 1:05Herold Square it had grown considerably
30. 1:08in size Spectators joined in marching
31. 1:11boisterously behind St Nick instead of
32. 1:13watching from the sidelines estimates as
33. 1:16to how many people saw the first parade
34. 1:18differ Macy's claimed a million one of
35. 1:20the newspapers claimed 250,000 it
36. 1:22doesn't matter uh the Salient point is
37. 1:25that the first parade was a smashing
38. 1:28success Macy announced within a week uh
39. 1:31that the whole city should set aside
40. 1:33Thanksgiving morning 1925 because the
41. 1:36parade would be back as the Parade's
42. 1:38popularity grew so did television
43. 1:40interest Macy Zen entered into a
44. 1:43contract with nbct TV I wanted to make
45. 1:46the picture as exciting as it might be
46. 1:49to someone who was standing there but
47. 1:51transmit that to someone looking at it
48. 1:53in Los Angeles or in Chicago so that
49. 1:56they got the feel of the parade in an
50. 1:58effort to make the parade more TV
51. 2:00friendly the lengthy 6 and 1/2 Mile
52. 2:02route was trimmed down to a suitable 2
53. 2:05and 1/2 miles the balloons became ever
54. 2:08more the stars of the parade and the
55. 2:11emblem and the symbol of the parade cuz
56. 2:14these Balloons look great on TV so I
57. 2:17mean Underdog was a perfectly fine
58. 2:18little cartoon but as a balloon it was a
59. 2:21superstar what started out as a little
60. 2:24March down Broadway has become an
61. 2:26American institution it's still Macy's
62. 2:29gift to the City and to the world but
63. 2:32for many people it's bigger than any
64. 2:34department store I would only hope that
65. 2:37everyone would get to see the Macy's
66. 2:38Thanksgiving Day Parade in person at
67. 2:40least once in their life it's just an
68. 2:42unbelievable
69. 2:50experience