The city’s July 4th fireworks blowout this year will feature more bursts of red, white and blue – and taxpayer green.
Moving the 38th annual Macy’s pyrotechnic extravaganza to the East River – rather than keeping it on the Hudson River across from New Jersey, where it’s been for the past five years – will run the city an additional $500,000 in security costs, officials said Monday.
Mayor de Blasio said the $1.9 million price tag is “well worth it,” because hundreds of thousands of people in Brooklyn and Queens – and not just Manhattan – will have waterfront access to the big show.
“This is something that will really benefit a lot of people in this city, particularly the folks who don’t have the opportunity to go to the kind of entertainment that costs a lot of money,” he said during a press conference at the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.
De Blasio is among a handful of Brooklyn pols who have lobbied to bring the fireworks closer to home – both for greater public access and for increased tourism.
Macy’s events producer Amy Kule, who said the shows have been fairly evenly split between Manhattan’s east and west coasts over the years, promised the return to Brooklyn would spark a creative, 26-minute extravaganza.
“You will see incredible pyrotechnics this year, I can promise you that,” she said.
City dwellers will also see the Brooklyn Bridge closed for a spell that day, though Kule couldn’t say for how long.
And while she said the move back to the East River wasn’t a permanent one, de Blasio made it clear he would prefer it stay put.
“I favor this new location and we’re going to do everything we can to make that as typical as possible – as frequent as possible,” he said.