Let the Fireworks Begin!

Well, thankfully we recovered from the Coney Island Hot Dog Contest in time to go out again. This time we went headed across town to the East River for the Macy's Fourth of July Festival. Per the Macy's website, there were eight barges armed with over 40,000 fireworks. That means over the 30 minute show, there would be 1,300 explosions every minute.

We left our place on 10th Ave around 8pm. It took 45 minutes to get across town, its about a 2 mile walk. The NYPD was out in full force and directed us up an on-ramp to FDR Drive. FDR Drive is a lot like the Alaska Way Viaduct in Seattle. It's an elevated road that runs along the river. We ended up walking down FDR till we were perpendicular with 34th St. Looking back towards midtown, we had a perfect view of the Empire State Building, which was light up in red, white, and blue.

In Philadelphia and Boston they read the Declaration of Independence each year, but in NYC we just want to have the biggest fireworks show. And it was big. There were three distinct spots in the sky that were the center of the show. Most of the time, the three spots would show the exact same firework at the exact same time. The wind was blowing from south to north, I think. I'm still not really sure about the directions here. Basically, it was blowing from the tip of Manhattan towards central park. This caused all the smoke from the first and second spots to blow towards the third spot. It wasn't long before the display of the fireworks in the third spot (nearest to the UN Building) were hidden behind a cloud of smoke. As the fireworks started to get higher and higher, many were above the lingering smoke cloud.

I've been to many shows in Seattle over Lake Union and Mason Lake. In all truth, I really didn't see a huge difference. Seattle has all of the star, smiley faces, and cube shapes. They also have the really huge explosions. The only difference was that there were three times as many in New York. New York definitely wins the "biggest display" prize. Not sure it was the best display, oh, and did I mention that it was raining?