Mad hats embellish NYC Easter Parade

April 5, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Rosemary Ponzo came to the Easter parade decked out as Judy Garland in a lavish black tulle hat with hot pink ostrich features in tribute to the actress, who immortalized the outlandish Easter bonnet display in a 1948 movie opposite Fred Astaire.

The annual event along Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue is more of a leisurely stroll than a parade, with smiling folks — and pets, too — strutting their homemade headgear concoctions as others snap their pictures or pose with them.

Nicki Gallas brought her large toy poodle, Maisie, dressed up in a flower bonnet and pinafore. Ensconced inside a makeshift bicycle basket, he happily posed for anyone who wanted to take his picture.

Gallas, who’s been coming to the parade for 30 years, also brought along her Eastern box turtle, Tuck, but left his cowboy hat at home because “it was too much to deal with.”

But, holding him up at the parade Sunday, she added: “He’d be in his shell if he didn’t love it.”

The Easter parade is a tradition that dates back more than 100 years. It originally was a chance for prosperous New Yorkers to strut their finery after attending services at one of the churches on Fifth Avenue. Garland and Astaire immortalized it in the musical “Easter Parade.”