This New Yorker has photographed every Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for 25 years
Every year as Thanksgiving approaches, there are two important tasks that Elizabeth Kahane must complete. First, she has her third-floor windows along Central Park West cleaned to a spotless shine. Second, she makes a trip to Barney Greengrass to pick up lox and bagels for her breakfast spread. Then, on Thanksgiving morning, friends and family arrive at her Upper West Side apartment ready for a bird’s eye view of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Kahane isn’t just an excellent entertainer. She’s also a photographer. While her guests are sinking their teeth into bagels, Kahane is found at the window—”one foot in, one foot out”—photographing the parade as it marches through her neighborhood. After 25 years of parades, Kahane has now published a sumptuously designed coffee book titled “Come Join the Parade!” available for purchase here for $75. Describing the book as her very own “Miracle on 64th Street,” she spoke to Time Out New York about her love for the parade and why you can’t miss it.
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There’s one surprising thing Kahane doesn’t do before the parade: Check the lineup. Instead, she likes to be surprised by the balloons as they approach her window. Each balloon is so large, her apartment darkens as the hulking masses pass by.
Long captivated by parades, the balloons were what first drew the photographer’s affections. Decades ago, she and her friends used to go to watch the balloon inflation on the Upper West Side. Back then, she says, balloon inflation night was a secret. Now, long lines snake around the block for a chance to glimpse the balloons as they come to life.
“It was the blowing up the balloons that really started the love and passion of enjoying the parade,” she says.
Eventually, Kahane met her husband on a lark. On a walk in Central Park, she mistook him for her friend Billy Cohen. Funny enough, this guy’s name was Bill Kahane. She fell in love with this kind stranger, and when they moved in together, she said an apartment along the parade route was a must. They found an apartment on Central Park West that fit their needs, and it’s been home for nearly three decades.
Over the years, Kahane has photographed the parade from her window, missing only two years, once for a vacation and once for a family birthday. Despite the collection of photographs she amassed over 25 parades, Kahane didn’t do much with the images until the pandemic.
“It was during the pandemic—when we could not have parades—when I started to dig out all my parade images,” she recalls.
Her photos capture all the festivities—floats, clowns, Broadway stars, marching bands, cheerleaders, cheering spectators, and, of course, the balloons. In addition to photographs, the book is packed with fun facts about the parade and its history.
“I never took these photos with the idea to do anything with them, except it’s just who I am,” she says. “The camera, for me, is a way to capture something that interests me, and usually something exciting, like a parade.”
By their nature, parades are ephemeral. The marching bands pack up their instruments after just a few hours. The balloons deflate. The floats hide away in storage for another year. But through Kahane’s book, the magic of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade lives on in its pages all year long.