For the past 16 years, Joel Lind and his father, Gordon Lind, have replaced a Thanksgiving turkey dinner with chili and coffee from a food truck in New York City.
The Linds, of Newcastle, help build floats for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The Linds’ involvement in the parade goes back to 1972, when Gordon Lind met John Cheney in Boothbay Harbor. Cheney, a sculptor and carpenter, lived in Boothbay Harbor for a year before deciding to move to New York City to pursue his art, Joel Lind said.
When Cheney started work as a float builder at the Macy’s Parade Studio, he invited Gordon Lind to help out with the overnight crew, which is responsible for assembling the floats the night before the parade. Gordon Lind worked on the overnight crew for four years while Joel was young before taking a few years off. When Joel turned 18, the two joined the crew together.
“It’s kind of become a joke with everyone, because my dad and I work together (at Lind Building & Renovation Inc.) but then we also work together at the parade,” Joel Lind said. “It’s a good way to mark the year and it’s a lot of fun too.”
Each year, the float builders report to a warehouse in Moonachie, N.J. at 8:30 p.m. the day before Thanksgiving to check in and receive their credentials. Joel Lind said crew members travel from as far away as Florida and Oregon.
“There are a lot of people who have been coming back for 20 or 30 years,” Joel Lind said. “It’s good though, because these people know how things need to get done.”
This year marked Gordon’s 20th year and Cheney’s 40th year with the parade.
“My dad is 64 and John turned 69 the day after Thanksgiving, and they’ll both be doing the high-wire work on some of the floats,” Joel Lind said.
At midnight, the crews load onto buses and trucks to convoy through the Lincoln Tunnel to Central Park West to start constructing the floats.
The float builders are split into eight crews and given their float assignments. Joel and Gordon have been part of the crew responsible for Tom Turkey, the float that leads the parade every year. The turkey is 21 feet tall and moves through a system of pulleys and cables.
“The turkey is a traditional float that I’ve worked on a lot, so I know it pretty well,” Joel Lind said. “At a certain point, you know where things are supposed to go and how they are supposed to work.”
In addition to the turkey, Joel Lind’s crew also constructed the Hallmark Movie Channel Float, which was new to the parade this year, and the Big Apple float, sponsored by the New York Daily News.
“The Big Apple float is interesting, because it’s a construction of the city with this giant balloon in the middle of it,” Joel Lind said. “In order to make it work you have to construct a tower for the blower to keep it inflated the whole route. There are all these little parts that make everything work.”
The crews start with the first float and work their way to the end of the parade. Joel Lind said there are six cranes that assist in the construction of the floats, which can sometimes lead to problems. One year, the crew was still finishing up the last floats as the parade began.
“Usually things are pretty well-orchestrated, but there have been some years where a float is using a crane and there are three other cranes stuck behind it that can’t be used,” Joel Lind said. “They’ve gotten it pretty well planned out so that there are these smaller floats that don’t need a lot of work in between the big productions, but sometimes there’s a bottleneck and you have to wait it out.”
The weather can also play a huge part in how everything gets completed.
“We have had a few years where there’s been slushy snow, so all the floats are wet and you have to try and dry things off to keep it safe for everyone, because no matter what the show goes on,” Joel Lind said. “Packing up afterward is miserable because you’re just soaked and cold. This year the weather was perfect.”
The floats are usually completed around 8 a.m. on Thanksgiving. The crew is transported to Macy’s while they wait for the parade to start. While some take a quick nap, Joel Lind watches the filming of the Broadway numbers and Rockettes’ performances that air when the parade is televised.
Joel Lind said his favorite part of the day is at 9 a.m. when the parade begins and the first marching band starts playing.
“You see these kids who have been working so hard for this moment,” he said. “They just march the entire parade route and play the entire time, and you just pick up on their energy; it’s contagious. No matter what you think about Thanksgiving and the commercial aspect of it all, you get caught up in that moment.”
Joel Lind has also had the chance to interact with some of the performers and entertainers during the parade, from saying hello to Dolly Parton and James Taylor to helping Miss America off a float.
“It’s kind of neat, but at the same time they get pulled away right away just to make everything run smoothly,” Joel Lind said.
Joel Lind usually gets to watch the first few floats of the parade before he needs to rejoin the crew to start taking apart the floats, a job that continues until 4:30 p.m.
“Taking it all down is my least favorite part,” Joel Lind said. “Everything has to be put back in a specific way, but at that point you’ve been rolling around on the streets of New York, your entire body is sore, and you just want to sleep.”
“But you get it done, you go home and sleep, and the next morning you feel great,” he said.
Joel Lind said both he and his father will probably continue to work on the parade until Cheney retires from the parade studio, but it’s a decision he makes year by year.
“It’s a lot of hard work, but I’ve gotten to see the parade and the city from a vantage point not many people get to see,” Joel Lind said. “It’s a parade that’s entrenched in tradition, right down to the food truck and the chili.”
