The 6th Annual Broadway Halloween Parade

I attended the 6th Annual Broadway Halloween Parade this past Saturday night here in Denver. It was sponsored by the Broadway Merchants Association and City Council District 7, and was a very family friendly event. There were lots of kids in costumes, not to mention many adults, too. The parade led off with three of Denver's mounted police, as seen in the photograph on the left. While the horses were all dressed in costumes, the police were not. I have a sneaking suspicion that those mounted police must have other duties most of the time, since the only times I have ever seen them have been at parades and Opening Day at Coors Field. I even think the horses are probably rented. Why have full-time horses for part-time duty? And where would they park those horses anyway - in the basement of police headquarters? In any case, they were a big hit with the crowd.

South Broadway, where the parade took place, is also known as SoBo (virtually every neighborhood in Denver now has an  acronym, which is actually pretty annoying). The area is filled with bars and restaurants, second hand clothing stores, and a lot of very strange retail shops. There is an annual music festival that takes place in many of those bars every year, and the place is popular with hipsters. Just to the west is the Baker neighborhood, which is one of the best preserved Victorian era neighborhoods in the city. One of the most well known businesses in the area, in addition to the Mayan Theater, which has been around since 1930, is the Wizard's Chest, a toy and costume shop that is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Some of their employees can be seen marching down the street - in costume, of course -  in the photograph on the right.

This was a real neighborhood event. As far as I can tell, anyone who wanted to be in the parade was allowed to take part. There were even a dozen or so low-riders driving in single file down the street, revving their engines whenever they reached an intersection, which I personally found very annoying, but then again, I am an old curmudgeon. The rest of the crowd seemed to love it. A number of the performers in the parade would stop right in the middle of the intersection where I was standing and do their act, which was really nice of them. But since it was getting dark, and they were constantly moving, it was near impossible to get a photo of them that was in focus. I took the photograph on the left when that particular group, which performed a very energetic dance number, finished and stood still for a moment for applause. When it finally got too dark to take photographs, I walked back to my car. I must say, I was impressed with the size of the crowd and the large number of people wearing costumes. Denverites just love Halloween, and I suspect this weekend in Lower Downtown (LoDo), the main nightclub district in the city, will mark the high point of the celebration. And what will my costume be? The same one I wear every day. I call it grumpy old man, and it is remarkably authentic.