Here's (another) problem with the Mummers

THE MUMMERS PARADE is not for wimps, but it starts at 9 a.m. with a whimper and ends around 6 p.m. the same way. Spectators are few at the start and finish, and the temperature tends to be low at the parade bookends.

With that said, the 116th edition of the Mummers Parade - with temperatures in the bearable 40s, on a gray and breezy day - attracted a greater crowd than last year, according to my (unofficial, but reliable) count.

The why is a mystery.

The new Philadelphia Division?

The parade was on a Friday?

Last year's parade received good reviews?

It's hard to know.

My chief role here as the Daily News' Mummer Editor (succeeding Ron Goldwyn and Frank Dougherty, both of whom knew more than I) is to explain Mummers to those who don't get it, but I also try to improve the parade as a spectator experience.

In the latter, it lacks a lot.

With all the repairs in recent years, it still suffers from a four-letter malady - G-A-P-S.

Late in the afternoon, a police officer motioned me over (I guess I look "official") to ask "What's the holdup?" between string bands, then at least three blocks apart.

"I've been covering this parade for 20 years," I told him, "and I still haven't figured it out."

At 5:15, I'm standing in the middle of Broad Street around Lombard, supposedly in the middle of a parade, with four string bands yet to come, and I am nearly alone on the street. This is stupid.

It destroys the joyous parade experience.

The city has marshals on the street. I'd suggest equipping them with cattle prods to move the bands along, except it's not the bands' fault. They're as bored as I am.

Someone on the city level has to pass the word along that the parade has to move along.

Here's an eternal complaint: The best (and almost only) place for a spectator to see the string bands' great routines, and hear the wonderful music, is at the City Hall judging stand. But the (only) people with a direct, clear, head-on view are the judges and the operators of WPHL17's cameras. The people in the City Hall reserved bleachers pay $19 for the "privilege" of a 45-degree angle view, while those in the side bleachers on the north and south sides of Market at 15th Street are totally jobbed. Their view of the performance (in the words of one critic, and cleaned up slightly) is nothing but elbows and anuses.

The judges need a head-on view, and they can be kept in a dugout centered at the bottom of a new bleacher design built over and around them. The cameras? With mini-cameras (and drones, for that matter), the TV station doesn't need to usurp viewing angles from the fans.

Spectators have a better view of performances in front of the Union League at Broad and Sansom than at City Hall.

Although it is not listed as a performance area, in a tradition following 9/11, string bands perform a salute to firefighters at Engine 1 and Ladder 5 on Broad below Bainbridge, greeted by Battalion Chief Chuck Herren. That should become an official performance point, replacing Pine Street, which had plenty of spectators yesterday even though there was no drill.

The final "official" performance location was Broad near Carpenter, before a Jumbotron, which carried the telecast of the parade.

I would have the Jumbotron carry the performance of the band in front of it, so it could be seen by many more people on the street. That wouldn't be much of a technological feat.

If the city and the Mummers want more fans on the street, they have to make the parade less "anti-spectator," in the words of one longtime Mummerphile.

This Mummerphile agrees.

Email: stubyko@phillynews.com

Phone: 215-854-5977

On Twitter: @StuBykofsky

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