The City Tourist Clowns are a clown unit from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
History with the Macy's Parade[]
The City Tourist Clowns debuted in the 2015 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, taking a tour of the New York streets along the 2.5-mile Parade route. The group featured clowns dressed as 1970s city sightseers with “I ♡ New York” shirts, tie-dye shirts, NYC subway sign buttons, and denim skirts with iconic Manhattan street sign patches. The silly sightseers travelled to Herald Square in their own Taxi Cab Vehicle (at a fare of 10¢ a mile).
In 2018, the clown unit grew to include stilt walkers of three iconic New York landmarks—the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, and the Chrysler Building. Also joining in the fun were Big Apples, Taxi Cabs, and Taxi Mechanics (reused from the Daily News Big Apple float).
The City Tourist Clowns were one of only five clown units to appear in the reimagined 2020 Parade in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. They returned to the line of march for the 2021 Parade as a full-scale group (sans the Taxi Mechanics) and continue to appear annually in the Parade lineup as of 2023.