T.W.A.T. 1984

1984 Greenwich Village Halloween Parade Photo by Bob Leafe

Long before the Village parade became over crowded with cliched Bridge & Tunnel Zombies, the sidewalks were lined with mostly straights while the parade featured everything from elaborate floats to a single black man dressed as a Drum Majorette in white boots with pom-poms, throwing a spinning baton in the air with one hand while he balanced a huge ghetto blaster on his shoulder playing marching music.

His style and performance were bested only by four moustached men dressed in 1940s airline stewardess uniforms, stockings, heels and matching pill box hats. They flank marched in step and every 50 feet or so would turn over large round hat boxes one by one revealing, "T. W. A. T." More photos of the '84 parade can be seen here.

Even the many blue suited and Ronald Regan masked cliches of the time allowed one to stand out through the intelligent use of a chain to drag around a hunched over senior citizen while carrying a sign that read, "EAT THE POOR."