Millions of people tune in for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade every year. The giant floats look like magic as they roll down the street. But they are actually handmade by a team of artists in a giant warehouse in New Jersey.
Carving The Foam
A float starts as a simple drawing. Then, carpenters build a strong wooden-and-metal base atop a hidden truck chassis.
The big colorful shapes you see are not solid wood. They are mostly made of foam. Sculptors take massive blocks of foam and carve them using hot wires and heavy saws. They shape everything from giant turkeys to entire pirate ships. Once the carving is done, they coat the soft foam in a hard layer of fiberglass or plastic. This keeps the foam from chipping or breaking while driving down the street.
Painting For The Cameras
Once the hard shell dries, the painters step in. They do not just use normal house paint. They use incredibly bright, custom colors.
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A float has to look good to people standing right next to it on the sidewalk. But it also has to look perfect on television screens across the country. So the artists use dark shading and bright highlights to make the foam shapes pop and look completely real on camera.
Beating The Tunnel
Some floats are three stories tall and span the length of several cars. But here is the problem. They are built in New Jersey. They have to cross the river into New York City the night before the parade.
The only way in is through the Lincoln Tunnel. The tunnel is only about twelve feet high. So the engineers build the massive floats to fold down. The walls collapse, the tall trees fold over, and the giant characters tuck safely inside the base. It is basically a giant wooden pop-up book.
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