Why are New Yorkers so sick of their own obsession with parades?

After all, this is the city that gave us ‘Don’t Rain on My Parade’, writes Holly Baxter

The Manhattan Halloween parade is one of many that occur throughout the year (iStock)

Last week, word reached my British ears that there was going to be a Halloween parade through the West Village in Manhattan, and I was beside myself with excitement. A parade? A parade which included floats of dancing skeletons and 8ft-tall pumpkin people? A parade you could join if you were in costume (my favourites from my local Target: hotdog, “crazy German in lederhosen”, Wonder Woman, and over-stuffed Oreo.

No, in the good ol’ USA, you don’t have to be scary on Halloween?! I couldn’t understand why other New Yorkers weren’t jumping at the chance to go along with me. Surely this was one of the definitive social events of the year.

Well, as it turns out, there’s a good reason why – and it’s not just the fact that it takes you an hour to find a free subway and get back to Brooklyn at the end, or the fact that you spend most of a cold October night pressed up against innumerable tourists yelling at each other in French just to get a glimpse of a Joker puppet or two. It’s because a lot of people living in NYC have parade fatigue.