MANHATTAN — For the first time in its 86-year history, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is taking a winding new route that could complicate things for marchers and handlers of the iconic giant balloons.
Now that stretches of Broadway have been converted into pedestrian malls, Thursday's parade will twist and turn around five corners from the Upper West Side to Herald Square, instead of marching down the straight diagonal line that Broadway provided.
The altered path could mean surprising new wind gusts at cross streets, putting pressure on the marching bands and float drivers, but also on the giant balloons handlers, said those familiar with the process.
"Wind gusts are very difficult to judge in the city because everything changes so often," said one parade organizer who asked not to be named because they had not been cleared by Macy's to speak. "Some buildings have smooth faces, or round structures."
The organizer said in response to the new route, Macy's has installed an additional weather box, or anemometer, to collect minute-by-minute wind speed reports. There are now eight of the white weather boxes — which cost about $25,000 per unit — that send the information to a central command center. In turn, the command center uses walkie-talkies to warn the NYPD officers and Macy's balloon pilots on the ground.
"It warns you what you're walking into," the organizer said.
Macy's spokesman Jeffrey Babb declined to comment.
But Macy's parade director Robin Hall downplayed the fear over the new turns, telling the New York Times the route has long included corners, including the starting point at 77th Street.
"There's nothing here that's new to us," Hall told the Times, "except for the parade route."
Macy's adopted stricter safety rules after a giant Cat in the Hat balloon traveling in 45 mph winds knocked down a metal post in 1997, leaving a woman in a coma for a month, and after an M&M balloon lost control in windy conditions in 2005, leading to two minor injuries.
Thursday forecasts call for low winds, with cloudy skies and temperatures in the low 50s.
