New York celebrates Halloween with massive parade

New York celebrated Halloween with a massive parade, which was attended by more than 60,000 people dressed in costumes and huge puppets, accompanied this year by exceptional security measures.

It was estimated that in the 45th edition of the "Village Halloween Parade", this time under the theme "I Am Robot", 35 music bands, hundreds of dancers and artists and thousands of puppets, also some enormous robots, some more than three and a half metres high, participated on Wednesday, reports Efe news.

To take part in the parade, for which traffic on Manhattan's sixth avenue was closed on Wednesday afternoon, it was required to dress up, although authorities had provided several observation points for the hundreds of thousands of spectators on the sides of the parade.

The event was monitored this year by thousands of members of the New York Police, both in uniform and in civilian clothes, with the aim of preventing any kind of security event after the threats that had been experienced in recent days.

NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill said there are no credible threats against the parade, but he called for citizen collaboration and insisted that security forces are alerted if they see "anything strange".

"There are going to be thousands of policemen in the street," he said.

The screening of horror films, singing and dancing shows, art installations, poetry recitals, and the most requested DJ's were organised throughout the city.

A holiday increasingly popular both in the US and worldwide, Halloween has already been celebrated for several days in New York with numerous events, among which a parade of dogs last week.

--IANS

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