Fireworks, parades, 62 hot dogs: US celebrates 4th

KAREN ZRAICK

Asso­ci­ated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The nation’s most extrav­a­gant dis­play of July 4 fire­works Mon­day was a tri­umphant cel­e­bra­tion that turned solemn briefly to com­mem­o­rate the 10-year mark since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Tens of thou­sands of peo­ple from all over the world streamed to Manhattan’s West Side to see the pyrotech­nics show over the Hud­son River between New York and New Jer­sey, fea­tur­ing more than 40,000 shells explod­ing in chore­o­graphed, mul­ti­col­ored progression.

“It’s beau­ti­ful,” said Rosa Riveras, a 57-year-old health edu­ca­tor from north­ern Man­hat­tan, as bursts of light filled the sky. “It’s amaz­ing. I’m lov­ing it.”

NBC ran an exclu­sive broad­cast from a pier along the river, with Nick Lachey of the show “The Sing-Off” host­ing. View­ers got pre-recorded per­for­mances by Bey­once, filmed in front of the Statue of Lib­erty, and coun­try music star Brad Pais­ley. Then the fire­works lit up the sky, tightly chore­o­graphed to a half-hour sound­track from Katy Perry, LeAnne Rimes, Jen­nifer Hud­son and other artists.

Beth Cochran of Scotts­dale, Ariz., was with two child­h­hood friends from Fishkill, N.Y. The group of three peri­od­i­cally broke into ren­di­tions of “God Bless Amer­ica” and other patri­otic songs.”

“We do not take friend­ship or free­dom for granted,” said Cochran, wear­ing an Amer­i­can flag tank top. “I’m proud to be an American.”

The show, spon­sored by Macy’s, paid trib­ute to the 125th anniver­sary of the Statue of Liberty’s debut in New York Har­bor. Fire­works blasted off from six barges along the river to heights of 1,000 feet.

As “Amaz­ing Grace” was sung, bursts of golden fire­works lit up the sky to pay trib­ute to vic­tims of 9/11. Big cheers broke out in the crowd dur­ing the finale.

All across the coun­try, Amer­i­cans marked the 235th anniver­sary of the sign­ing of the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence with parades, fire­works, bar­be­cues — plus pres­i­den­tial cam­paign­ing, a White House birth­day and com­pet­i­tive eating.

Thou­sands showed up near the Wash­ing­ton Mon­u­ment to eagerly await the annual fire­works show on the National Mall, while oth­ers were throw­ing on Hawai­ian shirts and shorts to ski the still-snowy slopes at resorts from Cal­i­for­nia to Colorado.

Ear­lier in the day on New York’s Coney Island, the annual Nathan’s Famous July Fourth hot dog-eating con­test brought out the biggest names in com­pet­i­tive eat­ing for a clash that was short in times­pan but high in calories.

Joey “Jaws” Chest­nut, of San Jose, Calif., wolfed down 62 hot dogs and buns dur­ing the 10-minute con­test, win­ning his fifth straight title. Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas chowed her way to vic­tory in the first-ever women-only con­test, eat­ing 40 hot dogs, one shy of her 2009 total.

In Boston, the annual Boston Pops con­cert was a must. In Akron, Ohio, the Rib, White & Blue Food Fes­ti­val was entic­ing. And then, there were Nevada’s casi­nos, which promised a pyrotech­nics extrav­a­ganza that could be a gambler’s best bet.

At the moun­tain­top home to Thomas Jef­fer­son in Char­lottesville, Va., offi­cials con­tin­ued a nearly five-decade-old tra­di­tion of swear­ing in new U.S. cit­i­zens. Seventy-seven peo­ple took their oaths dur­ing a nat­u­ral­iza­tion cer­e­mony at Monticello.

The hol­i­day is cel­e­brated as the nation’s birth­day, but it also was Malia Obama’s 13th birth­day. The president’s eldest daugh­ter had to share her par­ents with hun­dreds of oth­ers as Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama invited troops and their fam­i­lies to attend a spe­cial bar­be­cue and USO con­cert on the South Lawn.

Some of the Repub­li­cans hop­ing to replace Obama in the White House spent part of the day cam­paign­ing in states where pres­i­den­tial pol­i­tics are as much a part of the hol­i­day as fire­works and barbecues

U.S. Rep. Michelle Bach­mann, of Min­nesota, marched in a parade in Clear Lake, Iowa. In New Hamp­shire, for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov. Mitt Rom­ney and for­mer Utah Gov. Jon Hunts­man both marched in the Amherst parade. Busi­ness­man and GOP hope­ful Her­man Cain skipped the parades but threw out the first pitch at a minor league base­ball game in Man­ches­ter, N.H.

“Aside from the pol­i­tick­ing and the hand­shak­ing and the enthu­si­asm that our cam­paign is deter­mined to gen­er­ate in this state, we’re going to reflect on what it means to be an Amer­i­can,” Hunts­man told reporters. “To share inalien­able rights, to share our Con­sti­tu­tional privileges.”

Posted by AP News on Jul 5 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.