Macy's 4th of July Fireworks show returns to Brooklyn Bridge, East River

The Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks Show is returning to the East River for New York City’s 400th anniversary, after three years on the Hudson, Mayor Eric Adams’ office announced this week.

The display, to be launched this year from the Brooklyn Bridge, has alternated between the two rivers over the years: from 2021 through 2023 on the East River, in 2020 during the pandemic scattered around the city and ended at the Empire State Building, and in previous years sometimes on the Hudson, other years on the East River.

But for the city’s 400th birthday, the 49th Independence Day fireworks by Macy’s will return to the tip of Manhattan, a place of key historical significance.

There is controversy over whether the city’s year of birth was 1625, when Dutch settlers moved their castle from what is today's Governors Island to Indigenous Lenape land in lower Manhattan, or 1624, when a small number of Dutch landed and established New Amsterdam, a company town of frontier fur trade. Or was it 1626, when a Dutchman "bought" the island of Manhattan for what is said to have been the equivalent of $24? Or maybe it should be 1898, when the five boroughs were consolidated into one city? 

Although 1625 has little historical significance, it is nevertheless established by the city as the ceremonial birth year and is on the city seal.

And on the evening of July 4, 2025, Adams’ office says in a news release, the show "will launch from the iconic Brooklyn Bridge and four surrounding barges in the East River at the Seaport District, painting the New York City skyline in different colors through stunning fireworks displays and pyrotechnics."

"This year’s show will feature thousands of shells and an array of effects from barges positioned along the East River with multiple viewing opportunities in Manhattan and Queens," the news release said.

NBC and the Peacock streaming service will offer coverage of the fireworks show. 

Macy's first-ever fireworks show wasn't for July Fourth, but for the department store chain's 100th anniversary, an event held July 1, 1958, on the Hudson.

Macy’s has sponsored the July Fourth fireworks, said to be the nation’s largest for Independence Day, since 1976. In 1986, for one July Fourth only, other department store chains, Bloomingdale's and A&S, supplanted Macy's to be the fireworks' sponsors. But Macy's soon reclaimed the sponsorship, and the former A&S stores are now part of Macy's anyway.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.