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This July, America celebrates its 250th anniversary, and a wide slate of celebrations were packed into the hottest Fourth of July weekend in over 15 years. Fifty years ago, the June and July issues of the 1976 SoHo Weekly News covered New York’s Bicentennial events, which featured stalwart favorites and unique happenings. Both shed light on the conflicted feelings of the writers at the SoHo Weekly News and of Americans at the time, mirroring turbulent feelings today. Read on to unwrap this time capsule and explore SoHo’s take on the Bicentennial.
Comic from the SoHo Weekly News
The SoHo Weekly News utilized plenty of page space to announce and recap two major events, Operation Sail and the Macy’s Fireworks celebrations. 1976 marked Macy’s first year providing a Fourth of July fireworks spectacle. Macy’s partnered with Disney to put on the show, which lasted half an hour and cost $50,000 in 1976 dollars. A three-minute-long gun salute kicked-off the event. The fireworks then launched from barges in New York Bay, Liberty Island, Governors Island, and Ellis Island. The article notes that the radio and TV broadcast were unable to capture the way the fireworks completely surrounded viewers at Battery Park. This spectacle is now an annual event, and 2026’s Fourth celebrations will be the Macy’s Firework 50th anniversary.
A glowing review of the fireworks
Another returning event mentioned in the SoHo Weekly News is Operation Sail, where some of the tallest ships in the world gathered to sail up the Hudson River. John Calvin Batchelor, a frequent contributor to the SoHo Weekly News, peppered his coverage of Operation Sail with jokes about women ogling cute sailors and half-serious disappointment about the ships being too far to see well. He also noted the presence of protestors at the event who disliked the display of the warships against the backdrop of recent violence in Vietnam. He ended the article with the declaration “Rocky is camp. The Wainwright (warship) is camp. OpSail is camp. A good time was had by all, really, since I think it was the Fourth of July”.
Contributor Bob Weiner also took a humorous approach to his coverage of the Fourth celebrations. After his editor, Ron Whyte, tasked him with uncovering OpSail sailors’ whereabouts for the weekend, Weiner recounted the parties and social events of the weekend, asking various who’s whos of the time if they knew where the sailors went. Play director John Vaccaro, perhaps best known for his Theater of the Ridiculous, finally had an answer “I entertained a Peruvian and an Italian sailor separately on Friday. I hadn’t been laid in months… but The Village was crawling with sailors on Friday”. Weiner, having successfully found at least two sailors’ whereabouts, crowed that “sailors go to The Village to have sexual dalliances with stage directors. I hope that will satisfy Ron Whyte”.
Operation Sail mentioned on the SoHo Weekly News Events page
In addition to the main events of fireworks and tall ships, the SoHo Weekly News also covered more offbeat productions. One of these was “Flop: 4th of July 1976,” a mixed-media performance by Ken Jacobs. Part of the performance would feature Star-Spangled to Death, Jacobs’ experimental film that would not be officially released until 2004. Jacobs’ film combines found footage from the ’50s and ’60s with his commentary and critique of wealth concentration and war-mongering in America. Fred Camper, the reviewer, found the experience interesting and enigmatic. The performance included actors performing imagined events just outside of the frame of the compiled found footage. Although Camper appreciated the entire performance, he was most intrigued by Star-Spangled to Death, which would become a 7-hour-long film released roughly 26 years later.
Headline for the review of “Flop: 4th of July 1976”
These excerpts from the SoHo Weekly News illustrate both similarities and differences in New York City’s approach to celebrating milestones for the US. Whether your weekend had tall ships, sailors, fireworks, a mixed-media performance, or just some good picnic food, we at the SoHo Broadway Initiative hope it was a good one.
