Americans Usher in New Year With Football, Floats and Gunfire

Americans ushered in 1987 with football, floats and gunfire, watching a parade and bowl games on television and shooting guns in the air in several cities to mark the new year.

Millions of people spent at least part of New Year’s Day relaxing in front of the TV to watch the 98th Tournament of Roses parade in Pasadena and one or more of five college bowl games.

In Philadelphia, about 50 people gathered at the Betsy Ross House to observe the 235th birthday of the woman who sewed the first Stars and Stripes, supposedly at the request of George Washington and other Revolutionary War figures.

The night before, a crowd estimated at 20,000 had counted down the final seconds of the old year while fireworks lighted the sky over the city’s waterfront, touching off the new year and a yearlong U.S. Constitution bicentennial celebration with a bang.

Mummers Parade Postponed

A forecast of sleet, rain and high winds in the city Thursday forced postponement of the Mummers Parade for the 22nd time since it began in 1901, according to Norma Gwynn, director of the Mummers Museum. The parade was rescheduled for Saturday.

Gunshots punctuated the turn of the year in some Michigan cities, including Detroit, where the practice has become an unwelcome tradition.

Gunshots in Bossier City, La., proved to be deadly when a man who reportedly was kicked out of a bar after fighting with his girlfriend returned with a gun and fired more than 50 rounds, killing a woman and wounding five people, three critically, police said.

In New York City, violence followed what police described as a relatively safe Times Square holiday bash for about 300,000 revelers.

An hour after midnight, a group of black youths chanting “Howard Beach” boarded a subway train and beat and robbed a group of young whites headed home from the New Year’s Eve celebration. Police arrested seven youths when the train stopped at the next station and charged them with robbery, assault, riot and resisting arrest.

The chant was a reference to the death two weeks ago of a black man who was struck by a car while running from a white mob in the Howard Beach neighborhood of Queens.