Scenes from Sunday's Easter parade on Fifth Avenue

Thousands of decked-out revelers flocked to the blocks around St. Patrick's Cathedral for the annual spring festival

It’s a tradition stretching back to New York City’s Gilded Age, to stroll down Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue in one’s most colorful, most extravagant bonnet on Easter Sunday.

Of course, much has changed since the late 1800s. For one thing, there’s not much strolling along Fifth Avenue these days. Folks mostly just show up in their finest finery and cram onto the street in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral to pose for the peeps and the paps. And the gram.

Purely Patricia spent 28 hours making this headpiece (Photo by Scott Lynch)

There’s no schedule, no barricades, no real rules other than that the street closes from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The assignment, should you choose to accept: Have fun and look gorgeous and/or outrageous and celebrate spring.

Astoria resident Kat Casey showed up with 11 of her friends, more than half of whom were under the age of eight. “A true adventure,” is how she put it. “This is our first Easter Parade and it’s amazing,” she told Brooklyn Magazine. “It’s so lovely to see the creativity and ingenuity, and just so much joy and love.”

Photo by Scott Lynch

Most outfits were built around obvious seasonal signifiers like bunnies, baby chicks, butterflies and flowers, but there were plenty of freaky, abstract, get-ups as well. There were group themes (the Mothra gang was my favorite), ridiculous looking dogs, lots of food-inspired headpieces and plenty of New York icons like Patience and Fortitude, the famous New York Public Library lions.

Patience and Fortitude out for a stroll (Photo by Scott Lynch)

Melanie Londono of Bed-Stuy, also an Easter Parade newbie, appreciated how wild the scene was for such a traditional, family-oriented holiday — which, it might be worth noting, happened to land on International Transgender Day of Visibility.

“I love it,” she said. “I usually only see this sort of creativity at, like, Pride, so to see it on Easter, on Fifth Avenue, surrounded by all these stores and capitalism? It’s so great.”

New York icon Mother Pigeon with a Flaco tribute on her head (Photo by Scott Lynch)

All are welcome to roam around the avenue, with or without any sort of fancy dress, but the bonnet die-hards do go all out.

Photo by Scott Lynch

“This is my tenth Easter Parade and each year I outdo myself,” said Upper West Side resident Purely Patricia. “I don’t know how I keep doing that! It took me 28 hours to do this year’s headpiece. It started off as a lampshade covered by a wedding dress, and one thing led to another. But then, I’m a dress-up person. I would wear this to walk the dog if people didn’t think I was out of my mind.”

Here are a few more Sunday looks.