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Felix the Cat and dragoon balloons at the Thanksgiving Day Parade...
Felix the Cat and dragoon balloons at the Thanksgiving Day Parade...
Item # 712549
December 06, 1931
ROTOGRAVURE PICTURE SECTION only of the New York Times, Dec. 6, 1931
* Early Helium filled balloons - photos
* Felix the Cat & Tiamat the Dragoon
* Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
Page 5 has two photo s that were taken during the 1931 Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. A larger photo show Tiamat the Dragoon with a smaller image shows Felix the Cat. Each photo has a small heading and brief text. (see images)
Other photos of the day throughout. Complete rotogravure section only with 16 pages, a little irregular along the spine, generally nice.
Note: Thanksgiving Day in 1931 proved to be memorable in New York City. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade started at 1:30 that afternoon in Manhattan at 110th and Broadway. The large helium balloons being carried in that year’s parade included a turkey, a dragon, a two-headed Martian, the popular cartoon star Felix the Cat, and another character named Jerry the Pig.
In keeping with what had become the custom by that time, these balloons were untethered at 34th Street after the parade was done and allowed to float into the air. Macy’s offered $25 rewards for the return of each balloon released in this manner. At least three planes hovered above in the vicinity of 34th Street to collect on that reward money, but the Felix the Cat and Jerry the Pig balloons managed to drift away from there without being nabbed.
Both balloons were eventually seen floating way above Brooklyn by none other than ace pilot Clarence D. Chamberlin (1893-1976). Chamberlin, who is pictured in the accompanying photo, had established a reputation by that time as one of the world’s greatest aviators. His considerable achievements included being only the second pilot to fly a fixed-wing aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean without any back-up or relief.
By the early 1930s, Chamberlin was giving plane rides to the public in New York City. This is what he was doing on that Thanksgiving afternoon, having departed from Floyd Bennett Field in southeast Brooklyn in a plane filled with sightseers. Chamberlin, urged on by his passengers, went after those two fugitive balloons. He reportedly managed to snare Felix on a wing of the plane and lasso Jerry. “Chamberlin in Plane Gives Foolish Feline a Lift,” proclaimed a headline in the next day’s edition of the New York Times. The following year would be the final one in which the parade’s helium balloons were deliberately released.
Category: The 20th Century
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