To Haunt and Heal, It Takes the Village

If Jeanne Fleming is right, the perfect remedy for New Yorkers’ wounded psyches will snake up 6th Avenue starting about 7 tonight. What the city needs now, she says, is a chance to party alongside a 20-foot puppet shaped like a mythical bird and to belt out show tunes accompanied by a one-armed tuba player.

Never underestimate the healing power of an eccentric parade.

Fleming has seen plenty of that power in action during her nearly two decades as artistic director of the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade. She’s watched the event grow from a neighborhood attraction to one that draws more than 25,000 participants and 2 million spectators. She’s reveled in the free-form creativity, anything-goes spirit and inventive costuming that give the parade a special feel--bacchanal meets Doo Dah Parade.

Sure, the parade has attracted its share of rowdiness, politics and no small amount of commercialism over the years, but as Fleming put it, “that’s life in the big city.”

“In the end, this parade is about the life of the city,” Fleming said by phone from the Hudson River farm where she oversees construction of the parade’s puppets. “It’s the one night we see the city condense and realize its full vitality. Hare Krishnas march beside drag queens, who march beside an Italian funeral band, which marches beside the police bagpipe band. It’s like a utopia. I think we need that now more than ever.”

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Tonight, when the parade begins a block north of the closed area of lower Manhattan, the 55-year-old Fleming will take her place up front, donning the mirrored jacket a maharajah gave her in India years ago. She won’t know exactly what will follow her, but then, that’s one of the joys of leading a loosely structured parade, she said. “Sometimes I walk backward so I can take it all in.”

This year, she’ll also be curious about the mood of the crowd. “All of our lives changed Sept. 11, and the parade undoubtedly will reflect those changes. But I think people are ready to pick up the strands of life and join in a celebration. I suspect some will be angry, some will be in mourning and some will be full of light.”

In recent years, Fleming has called on the Village parade to lift her own sometimes sagging spirits and those of her 11-year-old son, Jordy, who has battled a rare form of eye cancer for four years. Earlier this month, Jordy was declared cured. “I’ll certainly be celebrating that,” she said.

On the day of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Fleming was at the 19th century estate where she lives in a leased house with her husband, Harlan, a financial planner, and Jordy. Artists use a restored barn on the property to build the giant puppets that help give the parade its identity.

That morning, Fleming was preparing to meet with other parade officials when she felt the shadow of a jetliner pass overhead. She remembers wondering why it was flying so low, and thinks now it may have been one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center.

In the first shellshocked moments after the attacks, Fleming and her cohorts considered canceling the parade. But once they were given a go-ahead from city officials and police, they felt they had to go forward, Fleming said. “We do this parade because it’s a cultural treasure,” she said. “We’re the custodians of a 28-year tradition. To cancel would be like giving in.”

Some changes were made to accommodate the city’s mood. The old theme--wisdom of the ancients--was shelved in favor of one suggested by 26-year-old puppeteer Sophia Michahelles--phoenix.

“It seemed so appropriate, this bird rising from the ashes as a symbol of renewal,” Michahelles said. She hurried to build the centerpiece puppet--a cloth-covered phoenix with a 20-foot wingspan, held aloft by six bamboo poles. “There’s an incredible energy that exists on this night, and I think that energy will be enhanced this year,” said Michahelles. “People won’t just be there because they take it for granted or they come every year. This year they’ll have thought about it.”

Michael McGuigan, who manages a troupe of stilt walkers, is a veteran of about 10 Village Halloween parades, usually joined by two or three towering colleagues. This year, when he put out the call, he got about two dozen responses, and 18 have confirmed. One young woman, who originally committed, backed out because of nagging concerns that the parade could become a terrorist target. “I e-mailed her back and said I probably have those same voices in the back of my mind, but right now they’re drowned out by the sound of sewing machines as we work on our costumes,” McGuigan said. “We’re so into making this happen, we don’t have time to consider possible consequences.”

New York police officials are certainly considering the possibility of terrorism. Police Department spokesman Mike Singer said he couldn’t talk about any aspect of security, but parade veterans say they expect to see a substantial police presence tonight.

Fleming can’t wait to get started. The daughter of a funeral director, she says she’s always loved Halloween, which she considers more about life than death. “The spirit is of dancing in the face of death. Halloween is about bringing you to that edge, standing on that edge and realizing what it is to be truly alive. That has always resonated for me.”