NYC Thanksgiving 2021: Parade Route, MTA Changes, Travel Times

NEW YORK, NY — After a year of virtual Thanksgiving celebration, the New York City Turkey Day festivities are back in person for 2021.

Chiefly among those NYC celebrations welcoming back crowds will be the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and the balloon blowup event.

The 95th rendition of the parade will feature 15 balloon characters, 28 floats, more than 800 clowns, 10 marching bands, and 9 performance groups.

Along with the events happening in the five boroughs, there will be more New Yorkers traveling out of state in 2021 compared to last year. With that in mind, Patch took a look through a recent AAA projection for the best and worst times to travel from New York City for the holiday.

Also, the MTA is offering expanded service Thanksgiving week, which you can take a look at below.

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade: Route And Performers

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade will take place on Thursday from 9 a.m. to noon.

The procession will kick off at West 77th Street and Central Park West, go south on Central Park West, travel through Columbus Circle, continue south on 6th Avenue, and end at the Macy Flagship Store in Herald Square.

You can check out the full route here, which will also tell you where public viewing is allowed and where it isn't.

Among the performers set to take part in the parade include: Jimmy Allen, Jon Batiste, Kristin Chenoweth, Darren Crisis, Jordan Fisher, Foreigner, Sara Bareilles, Andy Grammer, Chris Lane, the cast and Muppets of "Sesame Street," Nelly, Kelly Rowland, Carrie Underwood, and more.

You can check out the full list of performers here.

How To Watch

The parade will be aired live from 9 a.m. to noon on NBC and Telemundo, and will also stream on Peacock.

Balloon Blowup Event And Lineup

Macy's classic giant character balloons will get blown up on Wednesday, Nov. 24, on the Upper West Side. The celebration will be open to the public from noon to 6 p.m. and will be limited to vaccinated guests.

The entry point for the blowup event is West 72nd Street and Columbus Avenue.

The list of balloons and floats is a long one, but here are some of the crowd favorites.

Balloons: Pikachu, Ronald McDonald, Astronaut Snoopy, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Goku, and the Pillsbury Doughboy. You can find the full list of balloons here.

Floats: 1-2-3 Sesame Street, Big Red Shoe Car, Blue's Clues & You!, Deck The Halls, and the Fantasy Chocolate Factory. You can find the full list of floats.

MTA Expanded Thanksgiving Service

To ease holiday congestion, the MTA is offering extra trains Wednesday, free buses connecting to LaGuardia, a construction freeze, and more.

On Thanksgiving Thursday, New York City buses and subways will operate on a Sunday schedule, and the Staten Island Railway will operate on a Saturday schedule.

To accommodate the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the MTA is offering:

• Additional service on the 42 Street Shuttle and increased early morning service on the 1 Line
• 17 extra Long Island Rail Road trains. Six extra westbound trains will leave Long Island from 6 a.m. to 7:45 a.m., and 11 extra eastbound trains will leave Penn Station between 11 a.m. and 1:35 p.m.
• Metro-North will offer additional inbound morning service, and expanded outbound service from the late morning until the mid-afternoon.

You can check out all the MTA transport changes for the coming week here.

Worst Time For Thanksgiving Travel In NYC

The worst, most expensive day to fly will be Wednesday, while the Monday before Thanksgiving will be far lighter and cheaper.

Thanks to aggregations of anonymous car GPS data, AAA is able to pinpoint the worst time and place for Thanksgiving travel in the Tri-State Area: on Wednesday from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m., avoid at all costs the Queens stretch of the Long Island Expressway, specifically from Borden Avenue in Long Island City to the Little Neck Parkway in Little Neck.

AAA predicts that the stretch of I-495 East will see 482% more traffic than it normally does during that time frame - which is never a bargain to begin with.

You can check out the full breakdown of Thanksgiving Day travel here.