Last Saturday was a special day for Halloween and dog lovers as October 19th marked the 34th annual Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade held in the streets of New York City. Half of Manhattan’s Avenue A was filled with dogs of various breeds and sizes, marching down the street together with their owners, dressed in the most spectacularly creative costumes.

The event first came to life at the Tompkins Square Dog Run in Tompkins Square Park way back in the 1980s as a way for the locals to celebrate establishing the very first official dog run in the park. The dog run meant not only a nice hub for dog lovers but also the transformation of a previously unsafe space near their homes, and thus, the celebration was well deserved.

But the fun didn’t stop there. The event was organized the next year and the year after that, each time expanding, bit by bit, and attracting more and more humans and dogs alike. The trend continued even this year when, due to the construction in the area this year, the event had to be moved.

The number of participants has steadily increased for a good while now, but it saw its biggest jump in attendance after the COVID restrictions were lifted. With the parade growing into a bigger and bigger thing each year, it reached the point where organizing and overseeing it became quite a challenge.

John Borduin, a commercial photographer and the parade’s volunteer who’s been organizing it since 2020, told Gothamist that while he had fun taking care of these things, now he’s ready to quit. “I’m done. No more. I need another, bigger entity to take over this beast because it’s just too much for a small dog park to handle.”

While full of love for the dog run and its parade, the stress and never-ending issues of organizing such a massive thing have exhausted the man to the point where there is no more passion left to take it all upon himself. “You get burned out,” John shared. “There’s only so much you can do.”

No matter who takes up this mantle next, we can be sure that the Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade will not disappear anytime soon. It may no longer be exactly how it used to be initially, but this kind of evolution is natural and inevitable. 

Moreover, this impressive annual parade that started as a small community celebration for local dog lovers is not only going big and strong to this day but has also pioneered a way for other similar events. 

Mikiodo, or simply Mike, a photographer who captured many of the greatest moments from this year’s Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade that we get to see here, told Bored Panda that there are at least 5 more similar events happening this coming weekend around New York City alone, and so, that’s where he plans to be, too.

The man, who has lived close to Tompkins Square for a few years now, shared that he happened upon the parade once and fell in love with it forever, taking photos of it ever since. “I love Halloween, photographing parades, and especially dogs. So this is a no-brainer.”

For Mike, it’s the unusual, creative costumes that bring laughter that make all of this so amazing. “It’s just a very joyful event,” said the photographer, adding that, on the other hand, the parade could have better spacing and perhaps a staging area so it would be less dense and the people there would get to see more outfits in person. 

Nevertheless, Mikiodo got a chance to see so many great cosplays that he could hardly pick a favorite. He expressed how much he liked the dog with painted-on eyebrows, the Star Wars cosplay with the pup dressed as an Ewok, Leela and Bender from Futurama, the tiny-head Bob in a big yellow suit from Beetlejuice, and, of course, the ‘They’re eating the dogs’ costume.

Ultimately, if you were there at the start of it, chances are you’ll be nostalgic over those times and wholeheartedly prefer how it was in the past. But everything has an end, and we should learn to love it because every end is the beginning of something new. And just because those new things take the place of the old things you love, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re bad. 

While this parade may not be so much about the Tompkins Square Dog Run any longer, it has since become a celebration of community, creativity, and the unique bond we have with our four-pawed buddies. It gives another reason for like-minded people and their pets to come together and celebrate Halloween. And who could argue that this isn’t a good thing?

Which was your favorite costume? Have you ever participated in this parade? Share your thoughts in the comments below!