Whether dancing or strolling down 5th Avenue, flowery bonnets were in full swing in midtown this Easter Sunday.
“We are head over heels about Easter,” joked Patrick Loy donning a handmade hat made of women’s pumps.
After Easter Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, hundreds lined the streets to watch the annual NYC Easter Parade and Bonnet Festival, a tradition that dates back to the 1800s.
“My dad, who just passed recently, was a huge New York Yankees fan, so we came up with a theme for the New York Yankees,” said Daniel Mercora, whose family sported Yankee-theme hats and pinstripes at the midtown parade.
The big, colorful and not so ordinary hat creations were all handmade by people from across the globe with their own stories.
“I feel a lot of kinship with the New York City skyscrapers, being relatively tall myself,” said Maya Martin, who traveled from Washington D.C. and made a hat that resembled the Chrysler building.
As people celebrated Easter with their best hat creations, police officers were armed with their long guns, and K9s, around the cathedral and parade route, to ensure everyone’s safety.
Molly Comer, who traveled from California said, “Our cousins are from Norway so we thought we should do Viking hats.”
