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Mixing Whimsy and Prudence at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

Minutes before the balloons began bobbing through the streets of Manhattan, crowds pushed up against the barricades that lined Avenue of the Americas and, just out of earshot, counterterrorism officials from the New York Police Department huddled on the sidewalk, the Radio City Music Hall sign looming overhead.

“I don’t have to tell you what’s going on in the city and what’s going on in the world,” Chief James R. Waters, who heads the department’s Counterterrorism Bureau, told the team surrounding him.

“Today’s game day,” he added, his instructions turning into a pep talk. “Let’s go!”

On Thursday, as what was expected to be a crowd of three million people gathered to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade make its way through the city streets, close to 2,500 law enforcement officers were watching for trouble.

With the terror attacks in Paris fresh in many minds, and the emergence last week of a propaganda video by the Islamic State that includes scenes of New York, city officials orchestrated a plan as elaborate as the parade itself, even though they said there had been no credible threat against the city.

Much of the work was invisible to the jubilant crowds cheering on Pikachu, Snoopy and other airborne cartoon characters. There was the officer trailing the Hello Kitty float, his heavy backpack loaded with radiation detecting equipment. The plainclothes officers mingling with the tourist throngs. The helicopters overhead, scanning the crowds. They were trained and ready, officials said, to respond to an attack.

“We are always at a heightened state,” Chief Waters said. “We realize we’re a target. We realize terrorists can’t complete a sentence without New York or Washington, D.C. We have to be on guard all the time.”

Bolstered by mild weather, the parade to the casual viewer was a display of New York City at, quite possibly, its most whimsical. Streets normally clogged with taxis and buses were cleared for bagpipers, marching bands and even an army of synchronized jump ropers.

As they passed by, selfie sticks were extended and small children hoisted high.

New Yorkers were “not intimidated, ” Mayor Bill de Blasio said before the parade started from Central Park West. “They are feeling safe and secure, and they want to participate in this incredible event.”

At various points, heavily armed officers were seen along the parade route. On 50th Street, the department had set up a mobile command unit from which to monitor what was happening during the parade. And on the roofs of some buildings, law enforcement agents could be spotted looking down.

Ken and Suzanne Albers came from their home in Maryland to see the parade for the first time, and took up a spot near Bryant Park. Mr. Albers, who served in the Coast Guard, said he noticed bomb-sniffing dogs and undercover officers in the crowd, and he was pointing them out to his wife.

Still, he said, he was not afraid. “I will not succumb to terrorism,” he said.

Jim Healy, 70, a Boston resident, said he had no concerns about safety because New York had “the best cops in the world.” A New York native who said he last attended the parade as a 10-year-old, he mused that other out-of-towners might find the security more daunting.

“Talk to people from Connecticut or Pennsylvania or Rhode Island,” he said. “This is probably very overwhelming to them.”

Beyond the patrol officers who came from across the city to work crowd control, there were Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and hundreds more officers from the Counterterrorism Bureau, including about 200 from the newly formed Critical Response Command.

Inspector Scott Shanley, the commanding officer of the new unit, said that having a dedicated force — which will eventually grow to more than 500 officers — would better enable the department to thwart an attack or to react to one.

The officers were prepared to respond whether they faced suicide attacks and gunmen, or multiple waves of attacks, as in Paris, he said.

But as the parade neared its end, the day had been largely uneventful. The only blip had been a 41-year-old man and his teenage son caught flying a drone over the parade route, near the intersection of 77th Street and Central Park West. The father was issued a summons for violating the city’s administrative code.

Toward the end of the parade, standing near the command center, Chief Waters scanned the dense crowd. But for once he was not looking for suspicious behavior or a possible threat. “Look at the kids’ faces,” he said.

“For three hours, they can come here and have a good time,” he added. “For us, it’s all business.”

Alexander Burns, Emma G. Fitzsimmons and Benjamin Mueller contributed reporting.

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A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 26 of the New York edition with the headline: Mixing Whimsy And Prudence . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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