Five barges with 28,000 pyrotechnic shells floated on the river.
By nightfall, the crowd, which stretched from the Battery to the George Washington Bridge on the west and from the South Street Seaport to above Roosevelt Island on the east, turned its attention from sea to sky as 60,000 pyrotechnic shells, rising from 13 barges spread across the harbor, sizzled, whined and burst, conjuring a hothouse of exotic flowers in midair.
Simi Valley fireworks disaster caused by faulty pyrotechnic shell.
Simi Valley fireworks disaster caused by faulty pyrotechnic shell. 2 Latinos plead guilty to hate crimes against blacks in Compton.
In a display of computerized pyrotechnics, exploding fireworks shells will form a 1,000-foot-high 1,000-foot-high 1,000-foot-highhe Central Park reserverticalMonday.
Jeff Durand, manager of 1,800 acres of crawfish at Durand Ponds, 10 miles from the lake, said noisemaker shells and pyrotechnics had not scared off the waders.
At the end of the day, 60,324 shells -- 150 tons of pyrotechnics in all -- were fired into the air on both sides of Manhattan Island, providing a deafening exclamation point to the biggest Fourth of July celebration the city has ever seen.
However, U.S. pilots considered these shells to be more of a pyrotechnics display than a competent anti-aircraft weapon.
The competitors and the jury like a good racket as much as anyone, but for them the shows are more about conveying emotion through kamuro shells, go-getters, tourbillons, Chinese cakes and other pyrotechnic effects, all intricately synchronized with the music.
This year the Macy's pyrotechnic show was the biggest since the millenium celebration in 2000, igniting 56,000 shells over the East River.
The festivities will culminate at 9 p.m. with what is being called the largest pyrotechnic display in history: a Macy's fireworks bombardment shooting off more than 2,000 shells a minute -- more than 60,000 in all -- in New York Harbor.
