19 Craziest Instagram Photos From New York's Village Halloween Parade 2014

Halloween has come and gone. Now all we have left of the holiday are mountains of candy, a jack-o'-lantern that's probably already started to rot and the remnants of your costume lying around the house (or the neighborhood).

But, oh what a night it was. No one encapsulates that statement better than New Yorkers. Every year, New York hosts the Village Halloween Parade, which takes over Greenwich Village along Sixth Avenue, from Spring Street to 16th Street.

This is one of the most famous Halloween celebrations in the city where revelers don their best ghostly get-ups, huge, handmade puppets soar above the crowd and people bust a move on fearsome floats. You can only enter the parade route if you're in costume, which really helps Halloween take over the streets of New York.

It's just like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, except with a lot more masquerading, things that go bump (and grind) in the night and a whole lot of mischief. So it's basically nothing like that parade.

Whoopi Goldberg served as the Grand Marshall for the parade this year, and she posted a photo of herself in costume on Facebook before the festivities began.

I'm not really sure what she's supposed to be, and to be honest, that costume was kind of lame for someone who's supposed to be leading a Halloween parade. It would have been a million times better if she just wore the costume from The View's Halloween special, a Black Swan-inspired outfit.

Alas, New Yorkers were much better at getting into the spirit of Halloween than Goldberg with totally crazy, creative and creepy costumes perfect for the occasion. Check out some of the best photos of the Village Halloween Parade found on Instagram.