Transgression and Liminality in the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade Fig

Sarah Bonnemaison and Christine Macy

Queering the Grid: Transgression and Liminality in the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade Fig . 1. Balconies on West Te nth Street. (photo Marie tte Pathy Allen)

Resume Abstract

A New York, de grands defil es com me ceux de I' Action de grace ou de In New York City, large parades like Macy's Thanksgiving Day and the Ia Saint-Patrick parcourent les avenues de Ia ville, rememorant les rou Sa int Patrick's Da y parade descend the avenues, re-inscribing the major tes et les monuments importants. Pourtant, des son origine, le defile de routes and monuments of the city. The Greenwich Village Halloween Pa !'Halloween de Greenwich Village se fai sait contre Ia trame de Ia ville: rade however, from its earliest years, cut across the grain of the city, be il partait de Ia colonie des artistes a West Beth, sur Ia ri viere Hudson, et ginning at the artists colony of West Beth on the Hudson ri ver, and suivait un meandre de rues de Manhattan datant du dix-huitieme siecle, following the meandering streets of eighteenth century Manhattan to pour aboutir a u Washington Square, site longtemps associe a Ia resis · culminate in Washington Square, a site long associated with civic resis tance civique. Traversant le ca>ur du Greenwich Village, cet evenement tance. Traversing the heart of Greenwich Village, this event quickly ga i a rapidement gagne en popularite au sein de Ia communaute ga ie post ned a fo ll owing in the post-Stonewall gay community, w hich Stonewall qui y a contribue par Ia fl amboyance tant des participants que contributed enthusiastic and flamboyant paraders and audience. This de l'auditoire. Cet article propose que l'itineraire transurbain et !'inter paper proposes that the cross-town routing, and its attendant interrup ruption de Ia circulation qu'il provoquait se voulaient une manifestation tion of avenue traffic, was a highly visible manifestation of gay identity tres visible de l'identite ga ie vis-a-vis les cultures sexuelle et politique in opposition to mainstrea m sexual and political culture. Weaving its maj oritaires. Le defile se frayait un chemin dans Ia Mecque ga ie du Villa way through the gay mecca of the Village, apartment balconies and ge ; les balcons et les perrons des appartements devenaient le decor de stoops became settings for staged and impromptu encounters that rencontres orchestrees ou impromptues qui faisaient echo tant a Ia cul echoed both club culture and the environmental theatre movement of ture des groupes qu'au mouvement de theatre environnemental de Ia the era. peri ode. As the numbers of parti cipants and observers swelled to the hund Alors que le nombre des participants et des observateurs atteignait reds of thousands, the parade organizers were required to ex plore alter les centaines de milliers, les organisateurs du defile se devaient d'explo native routings, which would take the event onto the avenues. We rer d'autres itineraires, qui ameneraient les participants dans les ave investigate the implications of that change in terms of Victor Turner's nues. ous analysons les repercussions de ce changement selon le concept of li111inal and lilllilloid celebration-that is, as a marginal and op concept de celebration liminale et liminoide de Victor Turner, c'est-a-dire positional event based on transgressive self-expression evolved into a en tant qu'evenement marginal et oppositionnel base sur une exteriori hi ghl y, almost too, successful event that nevertheless wished to keep the sa tion transgressive d'un evenement qui a finalement evolue pour memory of its marginality alive. That change refl ec ts a more general ac connaitre un (presque trop) grand succes, tout en esperant garder sa ceptance of gay culture in the city but it has come at a price. Both tou marginalite en memoire. Ce changement refl ete une acceptation genera ri sts and participants enact a "safe" spectacle of "transgression," where le de Ia culture ga ie dans Ia ville, mais il a un prix. Tant les touristes que neither need question their sexual id entity. les participants jouissent en toute securite d'un spectacle de transgres sion ou aucun n'a a questionner son identite sexuelle.

Sarah Bollllelllaisoll alld Cilristille Macy tea ch at Da/11011sie Ulliversity Fawl ty of Arcilitectllre alld Plmlllillg alld share a collaborative desigll practice, Fil11111 Ltd. , which specializes ill festival arcilitectllre alld te111porary 11rballis111. Tiley have lect11red widely Oil their desigll work alld Oil tile rhetoric of arcilitect11re ill p11blic spaces, alld lm l'e bem awarded for their ISSAC / JSEAC 27, n" l , 2 (2002) ; 21-26. critical alld creative practice.

21 JSSAC I JSEAC 27 . n ·• 1. 2 <2002>

e all know what Halloween is: the 31 " of October, a night and city, young women gathered in a city plaza, paraded out of W when children trick or treat, indulging in a perverse dis the city to cut down a tree (symbol of freedom), and brought it ruption of daily life. They dress themselves up in scary costumes, back to erect it in the ruins of the Bastille. meet all the neighbours and threaten them, and then come home Lastly, a parade can start at one place and end at another. to eat candy for the following three weeks. We will describe this That is a linear, directional parade, a collective journey towards tradition as it happens in Greenwich Village, a historic quarter of a goal. A conservative version is a military procession, like a tri New York City. umphal entry in a conquered city or a royal procession through In the early 1970s, the puppet-maker Ralph Lee decided to a country. A radical version may also have a destination, as when walk around the streets of his neighbourhood of Greenwich Vil the sans-wlottes of revolutionary Paris dressed as women and lage with some of his large puppets and asked his friends to join marched to Versailles to demand the presence of the king. In him in a small procession. Every year the procession grew until times when revolutions are commemorated rather than realized, it became a major city event. In 1984, 60,000 people marched in such "demanding" assumes symbolic forms, as when jessye costumes and 300,000 watched the event. That parade became Norman sang the Marseillaise for the French bicentennial in the successful because it celebrates a 3,000 year-old tradition and, at very plaza where Louis XVI had lost his head two hundred years the same time, the particular character of Greenwich Village. earlier. Here, it is renamed the "place of agreement" -Place de Ia As the parade grew more popular, it changed. First, groups Concorde-and the paraders filing in are meant to symbolize a of people participating were organized and choreographed. democratic, not a revolutionary crowd. Buildings in the neighbourhood were transformed with drops Halloween, of course, has assumed the form of a collective and giant puppets into backgrounds for the celebration. Soon the journey. At the scale of the body, each trick-or-treating child city required police participation to block the streets from traffic. makes a journey from house to house to demand a favour, threat As the crowd grew, the organizers used barricades to keep spec ening retaliation if left unsatisfied. At the urban scale, the people tators from crowding the paraders. of Greenwich Village-whether they are actual residents or their In 1985, the Parade had hit a kind of threshold and its or counterparts in spirit (i. e. would-be residents of the Village who ganizers had to change its route. The small streets of the Village identify through sexual orientation or artistic could no longer hold the half a million people wanting to come. temperament)-journey across the daily and regular pattern of That change in route also changed the meaning of the Pa Manhattan, making their "demands" on the city by stopping rade-what people saw and what they could take from the event. traffic, making noise and acting out against the structure and As architects, we are interested in the relationships that were tak limitations set by everyday life. ing place between the spaces of the city and the content of the Some festival theorists have called this a "pressure-valve," festivity. or release mechanism, and argued that by releasing mounting tension against unacceptable circumstances, such practices in The Form of the Route is Significant fact legitimate the status quo. Others argue that carnivalesque The route that parades and processions take has more layers of festivals like the Halloween Parade present images of alterity meaning than one might at first think. We can consider them as types. that ultimately empower those disenfranchised or oppressed by A procession can be circular, moving around a sacred build society. They distinguish between spectacle (which is imposed ing, monument or open space. In making a circle, such proces from above by the state or corporation) and festival (which is a sions establish a sacred space in archetypal time-whether grassroots and liberatory phenomenon). Guy Debord's criticism seasonal time or the cyclical time of the religious year. The year of spectacle, like most Marxian critiques, sees all state- and ly procession around the Ka'aba in Mecca is of the latter type, as media-supported spectacle as inevitably oppressive.' Television are the rituals of city-founding described by Joseph Rykwert. is a technique for people to "buy into" this hegemonic world A parade can also make a return-trip, ending where it start view. ed. That type of procession starts with a point of communal gath The historian Natalie Zemon, Davis on the other hand, ar ering and moves somewhere to accomplish a specific task, after gues that some festivals, by presenting images that are multiva which it returns home. This is a parade of heroic community ac lent, can put into the public realm potentially liberating tion. It is oriented to the task. The French Revolutionary Parades representations. An example of this is the freedom that the followed that type. To celebrate the unification of countryside Greenwich Village Halloween Parade gives some people to show

22 CHRISTINE MACY AND SARAH BONNEMAISON 1!1~f!,..t=l .l!1~1!"•t=!f;1

Fig . 2. Movi ng across Sixth Avenue (photo Mariette Pathy Allen)

themselves as sexual, critica l or transgressive. ' We'll look into parade started at the corner of an avenue and a street with no this later in the paper. particular history, no distinct meaning. That new origin was just a place in the abstract grid of Ma nhattan. The end (the de facto The Itinerary of the Old Route goal) of the new route also changed, continuing back to Houston The route in 1984 started at West Beth Artist's Colony on the Street. The parade was no longer a journey from one meaningful Hudson river. The parade lined up on both sides of the block place to another; it became instead a ro und-trip from anywhere wide building, along Bank and Bethune Streets. From the river's to nowhere. edge at West Beth, the parade moved down Bethune Street to Experienced viewers wa tching the 1985 parade did not rec Abingdon Square where a group of witches stirred their ca ul ognize the event. Although the costumes and fl oa ts had not drons. Continuing down the commercial corridor of Bleeker changed much from the previous years, they co uld not be seen Street, the parade turned onto West Tenth, a quie t residential well in the large avenues. When the para de moved from the street that spans Manhattan. On West Tenth, the parade cut small, intimate streets of the Village to the large avenues, it had across Seventh and Greenwich Avenues, Sixth Avenue, and fi to make a change in scale, like a play that moves from an Off-Off na lly, with a triu mphant turn, marched three blocks to its fina le Broadway venue to a Broadway house where everything must under the Marble Arch in Washi ngton Square Park. get bigger in order to be seen. Costumes had to get bigger and Most parades in New York City march up or down the major more colourful, groups won out over solo acts; larger fl oats and avenues. The Greenwich Vill age Halloween Parade was unique, puppets were needed. and strongly identified as a neighbourhood event, in that it fol The uniformity of the street lighting on the avenues flat lowed the small and circuitous residentia l and commercial tened the event. The sporadic lighting of the smaller streets-com streets and only cut across the avenues. By ending at Washington ing in equal parts from people's houses and fro m city lights (and Square-the terminus of Fifth Avenue-that abnormal and wilful even from paraders)-lent a mysterious, intriguing and surpris cross-town parade is finally back on the grid. ing quality to the procession down the small cross streets. On the small streets, activities on balconies provoked re The Itinerary of the Parade in 1985 sponses all around, bringing the celebration up onto the higher In 1985, th e parade took a new route. The parade organizers felt levels of the ci ty and even onto the roofs (Figure 1). That way, the they had to do this to accommodate the half a mill ion people th at festival ex panded from a one-dimensional line of processants were expected to be in the Village streets that yea r. The parade into a three-dimensional volume of celebra tion. On the avenues might have been able to split up and take several routes through by contrast, that interaction stayed within the two-dimensional the Village, multiplying the capacity of the streets fo r the view plane of the street. The distances between paraders and audi ers, but the poli ce were strongly behind a move of the route out ence, celebrants and buildings, were greater. The avenue parade of the small streets onto the avenues. could not build up a sufficient density of in teraction-a critical The 1985 ro ute started at the corner of Sixth Avenue and mass-between the city fabric and the people, in order to give Houston Street. From this intersection, paraders moved up the them the immediacy and intimacy of contact they desired (Fig avenue to West Tenth Street where, as in the earlier parades, they ure 2). had proceeded across West Tenth and down Fifth Avenue to Washington Sq uare. Once at the Square, the parade had achieved Five Themes in the Halloween Tradition such momentum, it continued around the Sq uare back to Hous Now that we've looked at the relation between the paraders and ton Street where it disintegrated for lack of focus. the city, we're going to enter into the parade itself and explore That change in context also changed the meaning of the pa the uniqueness of this event that draws from very old traditions ra de. In the first route, the meaning of the parade depended and, at the same time, brings these traditions into contemporary eq ually on the Halloween tradition and the buildings and places concerns of politics, gender and disempowerment. of Greenwich Village. ln th at new route, the form of the itinerary, Halloween, as we know it, is a Celtic crea tion. It flourished the intensity of the streetscape, and the "places of memory" that in Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and parts of England long after it had were touched on had changed. become a dull prelude to All Sa in t's Day in the rest of Europe. It Originall y, the route linked the residential complex for was brought to the United States by Irish immigrants in the artists, Wes t Beth, to Washington Sq uare. On the new route, the 1830's. In the Greenwich Vi llage Halloween Parade, five themes

23 CHRISTINE MACY AND SARAH BONNEMAISON r!1~l!,.'l:l:l'l!1~1!,.'1:11:!

Fig . 2. Moving across Sixth Avenue (photo Mane!le Pathy Allen )

themselves as sexual, critica l or transgressive.' We' ll look into parade started at the corner of an avenue and a street w ith no this later in the paper. particular history, no distinct meaning. That new origin was just a place in the abstract grid of Manhattan. The end (the de facto The Itinerary of the Old Route goal) of the new route also changed, continuing back to Houston The route in 1984 started at West Beth Artist's Colony on the Street. The parade was no longer a journey from one meaningful Hudson river. The parade lined up on both sid es of the block place to another; it became instead a round-trip from anywhere wide building, along Bank and Bethune Streets. From the river's to nowhere. edge at West Beth, the parade moved down Bethune Street to Experienced viewers watching the 1985 parade did not rec Abingdon Square where a group of witches stirred their ca ul ognize the event. Although the costumes and floats had not drons. Continuing down the commercial corridor of Bleeker changed much from the previous years, they co uld not be seen Street, the parade turned onto West Tenth, a quiet residential well in the large avenues. When the parade moved from the street that spans Manhattan. On West Tenth, the parade cut small, intimate streets of the Village to the large avenues, it had across Seventh and Greenwich Avenues, Sixth Avenue, and fi to make a change in scale, like a play that moves from an Off-Off nall y, w ith a triumphant turn, marched three bl ocks to its fina le Broadway venue to a Broadway house where everything must under the Marble Arch in Washington Square Park. get bigger in order to be seen. Costumes had to get bigger and Most parades in New York Ci ty march up or down the major more colourful, groups won out over solo acts; larger floats and avenues. The Greenwich Village Halloween Parade was unique, puppets were needed. and strongly identified as a neighbourhood event, in that it fol The uniformity of the street lighting on the avenues fl at lowed the small and circuitous residential and commercial tened the event. The sporadic li ghting of the small er streets-com streets and onl y cut across the avenues. By ending at Washington ing in equal parts from people's houses and from ci ty lights (a nd Square-the terminus of Fifth Avenue-that abnormal and wilful even from paraders)-lent a mysterious, intriguing and surpris cross-town parade is finall y back on the grid. ing quality to the procession down the small cross streets. On the sma ll streets, activities on balconies provoked re The Itinerary of the Parade in 1985 sponses all around, bringing the celebrati on up onto the higher In 1985, the parade took a new route. The parade organizers felt levels of the ci ty and even onto the roofs (Figure 1). That way, the they had to do this to accommodate the half a million people that festival ex panded from a one-dimensional line of processants were expected to be in the Village streets that year. The parade into a three-dimensional volume of celebration. On the avenues might have been able to split up and take several ro utes through by contrast, that interaction stayed within the two-dimensional the Village, multiplying the capacity of the streets for the view plane of the street. The distances between paraders and audi ers, but the poli ce were strongly behind a move of the route out ence, celebrants and buildings, were greater. The avenue parade of the small streets onto the avenues. could not build up a sufficient density of interaction-a critical The 1985 route started at the corner of Six th Avenue and mass-between the city fabric and the people, in order to give Houston Street. From this intersection, paraders moved up the them the immediacy and intimacy of contact they desired (Fig avenue to West Tenth Street where, as in the earli er parades, they ure 2) . had proceeded across West Tenth and down Fifth Avenue to Washington Square. Once at the Square, the parade had achieved Five Themes in the Halloween Tradition such momentum, it continued around the Square back to Hous Now that we've looked at the relation between the paraders and ton Street w here it disintegrated for lack of focus. the city, we're going to enter into the parade itself and explore That change in context also changed the meaning of the pa the uniqueness of this event that draws from very old traditions rade. In the first ro ute, the mea ning of the parade depended and, at the same time, brings these traditions into contemporary equall y on the Hall oween tradition and the buildings and places concerns of politics, gender and disempowerment. of Greenwich Village. In that new route, the form of the itinerary, Halloween, as we know it, is a Celtic creation. It flourished the intensity of the streetsca pe, and the "places of memory" that in Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and parts of England long after it had were touched on had changed. become a dull prelude to All Sai nt's Day in the rest of Europe. It Originally, the route linked the residential compl ex for was brought to the United States by Irish immigrants in the artists, West Beth, to Washington Square. On the new route, the 1830's. In the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, five themes

23 JSSAC I JSEAC 27 . n ~ 1. 2 <2002)

have endured from the traditional festi va l. That can be seen in pare it to Macy's Parade, which is also a popular event, but one the floats, costumes, and the type of buildings chosen to be dec in which popular imagery is combined wi th techniques from orated that night. mass-production to make huge fl oats. It would be interesting to The first theme is Snmlwilr or summer's end-a celebration of discuss the issues around the use of popular imagery-the rela the end of the Celtic year. This "New Year 's Eve" festi va l was an ti on between popular imagery and commercialization. occasion for feasting, when the winter's food supplies were first The underside of Sam/rain is the second theme we see in the opened. Great bonfires were lit to frighten away evil spirits. It parade. That is the battle with darkness and cold, and it is exem was a communal festival of warmth and plenty in the face of ap plified in the raising of the "Ghost of Tom", a giant skeleton that proaching winter. In the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, is carried through the parade face-down, to a rhythmic chant ac we see Ralph Lee's "Hags of Winter" lead the parade, sweeping companied with clappers and rattles. Tom is the honoured guest away the bad spirits and preparing the way for all who follo w. of the Parade-its Grand Marshall. The costumes and the warmth of New Yorkers radiate ener This triumphal march down Fifth Avenue (the avenue that gy in an effort to banish winter. We see feasting and plenty divides Manhattan into east and west and from which all num brought into the modern era-with group costumes that depict bers begin) is a solemn procession to what can onl y be called the clusters of charge ca rd s, pieces of pizza, people dressed as party most sacred spot in the parade-the centre of Manhattan and the favours. This is a collective potlatch which prizes outrageous ex ga teway to Washington Square. At this spot, the Halloween Pa penditures on costumes and celebrations of display which poke rade again does the unexpec ted. Instead of a triumphal entry, the fun at consumption. "Ghost of Tom " is strung up from the Arch to preside over the At the climax and the finale of the parade, everyone gathers ceremonies in the most ghoulish way. in Washington Square Park. It becomes a giant block party. The By hoisting the "Ghost of Tom" up to the centre of the arch, traditional Sn mlrnin bonfire is recalled by the great light displa y the parade declares that the underworld rules at least for that on the Marble Arch, and little fires are simulated by small lit ni ght. As a symbol of death, the skeleton also ca lls on the partic areas around the park. Even celebra nts glow with lights hung ul ar hi story of Washington Square Park: during the Civil War, around thei r necks in phosphorescent rings. Just as the bonfires runaway slaves that were captured in New York by pro-sla very scared away cold winds and lost souls whirling about, the lights sympathisers were lynched on the trees of the Park, some of and music in the park transform its scary sides, lightening the which are still standing today. We might see this hanging effigy shadows of the modern dispossessed who panhandle. The park as an effort to exorcise those ghosts. reasserts itself as a welcoming spot for artists, musicians, and the The battle against winter is, of course, also a battle against young. evil. In the modern world, that battle is waged against greedy In his costumes for the choreographed groups that provi de politicians and rapacious landlords (both of which are lam the backbone of the parade, Ralph Lee continues to express the pooned in costumes), as well as the mea t industry and the world agricultural roots of Halloween. As a puppet-maker, he is inter of commodities that make both tender chickens and tough men ested in re-presenting ancient myths in modern contex ts. Artists (a tableau about Purdue chickens). like Robert Danton in Manhattan and Peter Schumann's Bread In Sa n Francisco, the Din de los Muerlos-also a Halloween and Puppet Theatre share Lee's interest in puppets, politics and type celebration-is an occasion for protests and actions by the myths. And other New York artists (documented by Lucy Lip AIDS activist group Act-Up, as well as by political activists in pard in her book Overlay )' ha ve also ex plored prehistoric spiritu Central America. In the Basel FaB nacht (a Swiss carnival that oc al practi ces related to agriculture, seasonal time, and ritual. So curs in November) , the memory of a historical event-the city's we see that many of the first costumes tapped into this interest in recapture of granaries during a time of grea t famine-is used as a agricultural ritual. One exa mple is Lee's "Jonah and the Whale" vehicle for criticizing the city government. The ruling elites of float, where an enormously fat man-a gluttonous creature-is Basel exploited the populace back in the sixteenth century, and swallowed up by the whale which may regurgitate him into a th at recurring annual event is a way for the ci ti zens of Basel to new cycle of life and growth . remind their politicians that the same thing is going on today, In the Greenwich Village Hall oween Parade, both artists and albei t in different forms. An essential part of those events is al "audience" participate. It is a popular event in the grassroots lowing the participants to connect what has happened before sense, in which people make their own costumes. We ca n com- with what is happening today.

24 CHRISTINE MACY AND SARAH BONNEMAISON r:.W1:.1l'A:illrl:.1~1:.,_'1:!1:1

Fig. 3. Parader (photo Manette Pa thy Allen )

The third theme in the Parade appears in the imagery of Manhattan-they are follow devils, witches, and other underworldly creatures, such as were ing ancient tradition. Ac wolves with their brides, Dracula, and Dorian Gray. These kinds cording to Ralph Lee, "there of figures are medieval descendants of the demons and ghosts of are no other parades that go the pagan religions-which have assumed forms rebellious to the across town, as we do in our ea rly christianizing influences on Halloween in the Middle Ages. perverse fashion. Halloween Wi ld men, green giants, and satyrs become devils with pitch is a night for the streets to be forks and horns. As with any image, these figures can be popu turned over to the people." larized, or infantilised; in fact, part of their power lies in their In Manhattan, stopping traffic is upsetting the normal order of fl exibility to that kind of appropriation. We see the parade sup things. porter Ken Allen, for example, dressed up as a Mardi Gras-type The fifth theme found in Halloween is the game-playing be Lucifer, accompanied by angels and their demon-babies. tween the sexes. Gender games are part of the general subver Whether it is in pagan, Christian, secul ar, or commercial context, siveness of Halloween but-since the Pa rade began in Greenwich the imagery of evil is threatening but necessary for the continua Village-, as the Village beca me more openly gay, so did the Pa tion of the whole tradition, positive and negative aspects together. rade. We see high camp, transvestites, sexual role-playing, fun In New York, those images infest the Jefferson Market Li and games between sexes and about sex and sex uality. There are, brary, the building in the Village most like a haunted castle. The of course, older reasons for this as well. Halloween was a time Library was originally designed as a courthouse in the 1880s, when the world of the spirits was close to the everyday life. And and uses the vocabulary of the day, a kind of Richardsonian since spirits could foresee the future, games of divination were Gothic, to express power and law. The building has a turret and played in all seriousness. Questions about future mates, pros cathedral roofs, and one could well imagine a dungeon. After its perity, and death were asked. By the eighteenth century, these conversion into a library, only one night each year does the ga mes were being played with some scepticism and, eventually building imagery mesh perfectl y with its use-the night of the combining with pranks and masquerading, they give us the Hal Halloween parade. loween custom of cross-dressing, jokes about sexuality, and out The fourth theme in the Parade is subversion. Probably the rageous behaviour (Figure 3) . major theme of Halloween, and certainly the dominant charac People act out all along the route, but the best architecture teristi c of the Greenwich Vill age Halloween Parade; subversion for these games about teasing, flirting, and being flamboya ntly questions and overturns the normal order of things. It can take sexy is the architecture halfway between the public and private the traditional form of elves and fairies who trick and play rea lms. On the edges of buildings, on fire escapes, and on bal pranks. conies, people can display themselves and act out almost any The Ru ssian theorist Mikha il Bakhtin was interested in car thing, and yet feel protected. Along Bl eecker Street, the fire ni va l practi ces in Europe exactl y beca use of their subversive escapes are full of men acting out the roles of both sexes. Along qualities' He felt that they represented a powerful voice of pop Tenth Street, where stately brownstones face both sides of the ul ar culture and an arm of resistance to politica l or economic op street, the stone balconies hold staged scenes-people spilling out pression. In the Halloween Parade, we see gender in versions in from parties held inside and lots of impromptu celebrating. the many exa mples of cross-dressing and in the inversions of The Halloween Parade celebrates the tradition of Hal power, as in the ca rni val esque portraya ls of politicians and mock loween. But it does more. It also celebrates the urban context of " Royal Weddings." These kinds of costumed tableaux work Greenwich Village and greater New York-a city famously ac within the older tradition of Mock Ma sses, Mock Investitures, or ce pting of different peoples and cultures. By beginning at the Kings for a Da y. We also see blurred boundaries and hybrids, as West Beth Artist's Colony, the Parade emphasizes its roots in cultural boundaries become indeterminate in face-painting New York's crea ti ve community. By ending in Washington whi ch uses both African and Australian aboriginal styles, and Square, it commemorates a hi storica ll y significa nt place to New costumes which blur of species boundari es between alien and Yorkers-a site for political ex pression in the hea rt of the univer human-or is it hi gh culture and pop culture? sity community. So when the paraders disrupt city traffic for that one ni ght of the year-and especially when they block the major arteries of

25 JSSAC I JSEAC 27 . n • I . 2 <2002)

Fig. 4. Descending Fifth Avenue (photo Mar1ette Pathy Allen )

The Use of Memory to every year since 1972, that cyclica l event has established itself as Create a City a memory in the minds of the people who li ve there. For the United States, New York The Route Changes City is an old ci ty. The Green what is Remembered of the City wich Village Halloween Parade brings up to the present things The old route celebrated the Village by magnifying its remem that have been forgotten, reaffirms New Yorkers' image of their bered past. The new route celebrates something else. Crossing city by using fa miliar pieces of the environment in a way that Manhattan from west to east, the old route cut the north-south mea ns something today. avenues and subverted the normal order of things, as Halloween The streets of th e Village trace the old roads of the eigh should. The new route celebrates the grid. To be in a parade that teenth century Manhattan. They are paths with beginnings and marches up a Manhattan avenue orients one differently to the endings. By walkin g this kind of street, one remembers an older city than to be in a parade winding through cross-town streets. way of life. The narrow cobblestone streets and small-scale hous The avenues are, in theory at least, infinitely ex tensible on the es wi th stoops ha ve made the Village a retreat from Manhattan's America n grid; an avenue is a street of the entire city, or even energeti c urbanism. This has made the Village traditionally a more: Avenue of Ameri cas, Madison Avenue, Fifth Avenue (Fig ha ven for families, artists, and people wanting the life of a small ure 4). community in the middle of the city. Now, of course, property The 1984 route was a Greenwich Vill age block party over has become so expensive that there are many more people who laid on an ancient ritual. Using th e architecture as a mea ningfu l want to " li ve th e Village life" in Manhattan but ca n only afford backdrop, it sati sfied the cultural demands of the Villagers. The Brooklyn or Queens. The Parade works with the memories and 1985 route satisfies the cultural needs of a much larger group, the expectations of both groups to present-or experience-the "Vil residents of metropolitan New York City. Those people come as lage" as a mythic place. tourists to experience the Parade, and with their ca meras, they A city is full of "places of memory," to use an expression of take home that adventure to the outskirts of the city. They come Pierre Nora.' The parade brings certain pieces of the Village into with an open mind, curious and alert. They come to participate focus-so you ca n see them as if for the first time, full of person in an active culture-to be part of a crowd recreating a ritual. The ality and signi fica nce. For example, the Tenth Street balconi es tourists come to this chaos and wildness to look for a ca talyst for come to life in th e parade. Wild parties, people hangi ng over th e their own creati vity-to feel alive. railings-this is more the Village than the Vill age could ever be. We have seen that the relationship between the Parade and The Library, norma ll y a place where one gets books, be the route it takes through the city is not accidental. As rituals take comes again the courthouse with a tower and maybe even a dun place, they construct "sacred " sites, whi ch in turn give meaning geon. That magnification of the Village personality-that and layers to the ritual. As arti sts and as critics, this serves as a ca ri ca ture-stays with the residents even after the parade is gone. reminder to us of the impossibility of autonomy in social and A spider crawling up the Library tower, wild parties in the cultural practices. The Greenwich Village Halloween Parade re brownstones and the giant skeleton dangling from the Marble minds us that cultural richness comes from the layering of inten Arch- these objects, rea l only that ni ght, become memories that tion and interpretation, history and geography, accident and haunt their loca ti ons throughout the year. One ca n remember memory. even the wild parade itself, sexuality exorcised, as one walks Notes down th e streets it passed along. The preparati ons for th e parade link residents to the event. 1. Debord, Guy (1977), Socicttt 3. Lippard, Lu cy (1983), They see "behind the scenes" and they like the fact that this ac of tile Spectnc/e, Detroit, Black and Ouerlny: Coule111pornry Art nud tile tivity will be transforming the neighbourhood. The Parade re Red. Art of Prcl1istory, ew Yo rk, Pan centres the Vi ll age as a crea ti ve neighbourhood of Manhattan. 2. Zemon Davis, Natalie (1975) theon. Arti sts may no longer be able to afford its rents, but they come to « Women on Top » , In Socie lt f nud 4. Bakhtin, Mikhail (1968), Rn Culture iu Early Modem Frnuce: bclnis nud Hi; World, Ca mbri dge, West Beth to costume th emselves and prepare fo r th e line up. In eight e;;nys, Palo Alto, California, Massachusetts, MIT Press. that way, th e Parade makes the Village more like itself. And Stanford Uni\·ersity Press. 5. Nora, Pierre (1984), Les lieux de uu;111oirc, Pa ris, Gallimard .