Mummers Strut Up Broad Street, Leaving Behind a Trail of Glitter, Feathers and Fun
What better way to bring in the new year than watch 10,000 men and women dressed in colorfully lavish costumes strut up Broad Street? This year marks the 111th year for the Philadelphia Mummers Parade. The parade begins at 10am and begins in South Philadelphia in the morning and winds its way up Broad Street to City Hall approximately eight hours later.
Spectators are encouraged to leave their cars behind and take public transportation into the city. Those who drive should park in a garage. One of the best places to view the spectacle is from the judging stands outside City Hall, but tickets must be reserved in advance. Tickets for the City Hall Grand Stand performance zone are one sale at the Fairmount Park Welcome Center, 16th and JFK Boulevard, 215-683-0246 or the Independence Visitor Center on 6th and Market, 215-965-7676.
For sidewalk seating, arrive early and set up near a drill location, where marching String Bands and Fancy Brigades stop to perform. These spots are at the intersections of Broad Street and the following streets: City Hall, Sansom, Pine, Washington, Ritner and Shunk. If there's no space there, another option is to watch from a staging area: Broad Street and Washington Avenue (Comics, 10 a.m.), Broad and Moore Streets (Fancies, 10:30 a.m.), Broad Street and Oregon Avenue (String Bands, 11 a.m.). So now onto some history:
Mummery traces its roots to ancient Roman laborers who ushered in the festival of Saturnalia by marching in masks while exchanging gifts and satirizing the issues of the day. In the 1600s, Swedish settlers to Philadelphia's outskirts honored Christmas by beseeching their neighbors for dessert and liquor by dressing up, chanting and shooting firearms.
The party eventually migrated to New Year's Day and evolved into a series of neighborhood parades; then, as immigrants moved to the area from Ireland and Italy, each group added their own cultural flair to the local customs. In 1901, the tradition began in earnest with the first recognized and judged Mummers Parade. The term "Mummer" is German and means "to costume or masquerade."
Cannot make it out to the parade? MY PHL 17 has you covered. Viewers at home can watch the Mummers Parade on MY PHL 17 with pre-parade coverage starting at 9 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2011.
Use THIS SCOREBOARD to keep track of of the comic, fancy and string band divisions as they strut!
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