I figure this is timely for the upcoming holiday and I don't believe this has been asked before on this forum, but how does your town do their fireworks for the 4th of July? Living in Indianapolis I'm used to watching the fireworks from the top of the 36-story high Regions bank tower in Downtown. It made me start thinking about how rare, or not rare, it is for the fireworks to be launched from the top of a building. Most places I figure fire them from the ground, either in a park or along a waterfront. Last year I got to see New York City's fireworks from the East River and I know Chicago does their's from Lake Michigan, or right near it. I'm just curious on how other places do it around the country and any opinions on it.
No clue. I stay home and avoid the hellacious traffic. I'm out in the sticks just outside of city limits, so my neighbors always shoots off their own fireworks anyway, so I have no reason to leave the house.
Now, when I was growing up near Goldsboro, NC, fireworks were shot off at Berkeley Mall. Everybody parked in the mall parking lot and watched. I did that many times. They still have fireworks at the mall every year. The parking lot layout is a clusterfuck to begin with, so trying leave after the fireworks ended was always a bitch.
Fireworks are going off right now in my city/town. It's still the 3rd.
Several towns around here have their fireworks (they each do their own, but the real show is downtown) on a date other than the 4th itself. Webster doesn't do theirs until this Saturday, in conjunction with their yearly carnival. I've been hearing fireworks in the evenings, coming from random places, for a few weeks now.
Honestly, I remember more about the traffic caused by the downtown fireworks display than I do about the show itself! Traffic is atrocious before, during, and afterwards, especially off the freeway, where it can be virtual gridlock for hours.
My township stopped doing fireworks around five years ago for security reasons.
I live in an unincorporated part of the county with no organized community. So no fireworks even nearby. However, over 13 miles away in Orlando is Lake Eola and their annual Independence Day Fireworks plus the theme parks that offer them daily.
A shit load of fireworks all week. So much so this year in the Fresno area they actually contributed heavily to a small dust storm last night.
2 towns near me have small parades in the moening; mostly the participants in the first one go straight to the 2nd one.
Other towns used to have fireworks on the 4th, but they mostly have them on other days now because it's cheaper.
People are shooting off fireworks in my neighborhood. It terrifies my animals.
for whatever reason my community celebrates on July 1.
Quote from: AsphaltPlanet on July 03, 2018, 11:32:16 PM
for whatever reason my community celebrates on July 1.
Us too.....we had a pancake breakfast Sunday morning and fireworks in the evening
Just a normal working day here. :sleep:
We usually stay home, but this year we have relatives in town, so we will go watch the fireworks over DC from somewhere on the Virginia side. Many of the local jurisdictions have their own fireworks except for the City of Alexandria, which does them the weekend after July 4 to mark the date the city was founded. But if you come here for this holiday, of course you want to go see the big show. We haven't determined exactly where we're going yet, and a wrinkle was thrown in last night when my wife hit a weird curb and cut a tire, so that car is at NTB. Should be fixed today, but if not, well, that's why we have extra cars.....
Quote from: 1995hoo on July 04, 2018, 07:31:41 AM
But if you come here for this holiday, of course you want to go see the big show.
I have actually seen the DC fireworks, back in 2000, watched the fireworks on the National Mall, and then spent two hours getting to the platform at the Metro Center station afterwards.
Quote from: tdindy88 on July 04, 2018, 08:35:09 AM
Quote from: 1995hoo on July 04, 2018, 07:31:41 AM
But if you come here for this holiday, of course you want to go see the big show.
I have actually seen the DC fireworks, back in 2000, watched the fireworks on the National Mall, and then spent two hours getting to the platform at the Metro Center station afterwards.
In 1994, some friends and I got stuck under the Potomac for 90 minutes when a train ahead of ours had an issue. I haven't been downtown for the fireworks since.
There is no official fireworks display within my town's limits, but there are two less than a mile from the town line. One is at an amusement park, and the other is in a local park. Many towns do it either the weekend before or on the 3rd. I've usually been in town for the 4th, but in back to back years I got to see a couple of nice displays, one over the Inner Harbor in Baltimore (great show, and looking out at Fort Mac made it even more special) and the other over Lake George, NY.
Usually Fort Smith blows up a bunch of fireworks by the riverfront, accompanied by a local band playing in the key of off.
Springdale, AR has a rodeo parade on the 1st and 4th, then blows up stuff.
Towns in the area have fireworks shows scattered throughout the days surrounding the Fourth.
Hartford and Enfield have two of the larger displays, held the weekend after.
This is my first year working on a Canadian schedule. Working today feels...odd.
Call the police on people for setting off fireworks. (Neighborhood I live in)
It's happened to my family before, apparently someone thought we were setting them off too late... Even though others were doing the same.
Simsboro used to have an organized fireworks show at the high school baseball park. That was 20+ years ago since the last one.
Quote from: ghYHZ on July 04, 2018, 04:06:04 AM
Quote from: AsphaltPlanet on July 03, 2018, 11:32:16 PM
for whatever reason my community celebrates on July 1.
Us too.....we had a pancake breakfast Sunday morning and fireworks in the evening
What a couple of hosers!
My community usually celebrates by lighting some brush on fire, or blowing off some limbs.
Only a few towns in my area ban fireworks, so there's been some constant booming for the last few days. There are a bunch of Indian reservations nearby, which have test fields. Always some smoke driving by them this time of year.
Wichita has two Fourth of July traditions:
* City-sponsored fireworks display on the 4th itself.
* Illegal use of high-powered fireworks that are legal in unincorporated Sedgwick County and the suburbs but not Wichita itself that is so extensive it prompts the City Council to consider discarding the fireworks ordinance for unenforceability, only to have pet owners and PTSD-suffering veterans not only dissuade them from doing so, but also cause them to promise some form of more stringent enforcement (the precise kind varies from year to year) that mysteriously fails to materialize.
Quote from: 02 Park Ave on July 03, 2018, 09:37:05 PM
My township stopped doing fireworks around five years ago for security reasons.
Is anyplace in the Colorado mountains doing fireworks this year? Lots of fire bans, including one for the entire county where I am right now.
I brought some old glow sticks, which if they still work will give the kids in the soaking pool tonight an alternate celebration of the holiday.
My little community does a big fireworks show.
I stay home to avoid the crowds, the heat (today is supposed to be the hottest day of the year, as a cooling trend is in the forecast for later this month and in August) and because I usually have to work the next day. When I lived in town, we could see the fireworks from our house (the noise was so bad it sent the cats running the first year we lived there when the first big boom went off) but at my age, fireworks don't carry any great interest.
Fireworks are banned in my city and people seem to have gotten the message (only a few heard so far). There is an Indian reservation nearby that sells them by the bucket, so people go there.
Others just go to the many big shows put on in Seattle and the suburbs. The big show at Gas Works Park requires camping a day before to secure a spot.
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Of course they're banned, its Seattle. :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
We raise a cup of tea and say "Good riddance" :sombrero:
I saw this on Reddit and thought it was worth sharing :)
(https://i.imgur.com/oQ35uMj.jpg)
The University of Waterloo holds a large fireworks display for Canada Day. I missed it this year since I was at a friend's cottage, but we saw a couple fireworks by the lake.
I remember being impressed by how many people would bring their own fireworks on the beach in Myrtle Beach, SC. My family took trips there many times and a couple times were on July 4th.
Quote from: SSOWorld on July 04, 2018, 07:20:59 PM
Of course they're banned, its Seattle. :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
It's only some cities near Seattle. South of Seattle (as I mentioned in my post), only a few cities ban it. Still very liberal firework laws.
I think the ban is due to the general dryness of this time of year, and the dense foliage.
Yeah, there's been a few wildfires in the West caused by fireworks, either accidentally or deliberately.
Last year, 30,000 acres of the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon burned because a bunch of dumb kids threw fireworks into dry brush (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/06/eagle-creek-wildfire-oregon-teenager-fireworks). It closed I-84 for a while and brought smoke into Portland and surrounding areas.
Mason City does their show on the 3rd at the high school and Clear Lake does theirs on the 4th over the lake. Many people see both.
Even though Massachusetts outlaws fireworks, people will still shoot them off in every neighborhood as well as the larger shows by the beaches.
Quote from: WR of USA on July 05, 2018, 08:05:35 AM
Even though Massachusetts outlaws fireworks, people will still shoot them off in every neighborhood as well as the larger shows by the beaches.
Here too. Where I live, it's really easy to just go one town north into New Hampshire, where it's actually legal, and they still don't do that.
It's my first July in Munster, and their official town fireworks were on the 3rd. Two reasons I like them on the 3rd:
1) The next day is a day off work so it's a good day to be up late
2) Makeup day can be the 4th if it rains
Turned out to be fortunate planning this year, anybody in NWI or south suburbs of Chicago who had fireworks planned for the 4th almost certainly didn't have them due to storms last night.
Quote from: roadman65 on July 03, 2018, 10:17:54 PMI live in an unincorporated part of the county with no organized community.
Same here, but many of the surrounding townships & boroughs host fireworks displays of their own either on the 4th itself (for those that don't want to head into Philly) or different days throughout this week.
One borough near me, Glenolden, always schedules their fireworks display on the third Saturday in June (rain date is usually set for the third Sunday, such happened this year) to keep it separate from the competing displays during the 4th.
San Jose sets off fireworks from the Alviso wetlands area at the south end of S.F. bay for safety purposes; outbound flights from Mineta Airport (SJO) are suspended for the 90-minute duration of the display since it's right in the takeoff lane. Neighboring cities with their own displays are Fremont/Newark, which also sets off displays from a jetty near the east end of the Dumbarton Bridge, and Mountain View, which does something similar but across the bay. The displays are sequenced so when one ends the other begins, from west to east. However, that doesn't stop local morons from setting off M80's and M100's (those are really loud) out in the streets of San Jose and environs -- they seem to drive to a park or unoccupied schoolground and set off the sticks when they don't see anyone in the vicinity. Around here, if we see someone doing this in the neighborhoods, we'll generally call it in -- but experience has shown, with only 930 cops for all of San Jose plus a handful of sheriffs' deputies, this has little or no effect -- the blasts go on until about 3 a.m. This is my 6th successive 07/04 up here; I don't expect things to change anytime soon. Just sit on the north-facing balcony with binoculars and watch the show and make sure the dog stays inside for the duration is the normal modus operandi!
We drove to Reagan Airport and watched the DC fireworks from the top of the Terminal C parking garage. Fair number of other people had the same idea. Traffic wasn't too bad leaving, though. $12 for the garage to beat the traffic and not get eaten alive by mosquitoes is worth it.
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In Wichita I think it is fair to say that the City Council failed to follow through on its promise of more stringent enforcement of the fireworks ordinance, which bans everything except sparklers and pyrotechnics that create displays no taller than six feet. Police and firefighters were sent out in unmarked cars to look for fireworks in violation, but were given the option of signing up for the overtime (i.e., were not under mandatory instruction to patrol). In many cases, those who actually went out had to back off on writing tickets when they found themselves surrounded by angry neighbors (20 people versus one city employee is not favorable odds). One grandma assaulted a firefighter with a Roman candle.
In the end, just 133 citations ($250 each) were issued for a city of 400,000 people, and on the night of the Fourth it sounded like one of the great setpiece battles of World War II.
I watched the show in Bellevue, WA from a friend's high-rise apartment. The view was wide enough that we were also able to see Seattle's show across the water.
Friend with an apartment near the MCI Center in downtown DC with a balcony facing the Washington Monument.
Got to see the fireworks from the Mall without dealing with the unwashed masses.