We went to the St Patrick’s Day parade yesterday. From an early hour the city was full of people in festive green clothes, and if you didn’t have any street vendors had popped up to happily sell you some.
The parade travels over 30 city blocks and lasts for about 5 hours. According to the forecast, there were 150,000 marchers and over two million spectators. We inadvertently ended up at a good viewing position about two blocks past the starting point.
The parade alternated bands (many with bagpipes), military groups, school groups and Irish community groups. There was a seemingly never-end to them, and we saw all sorts of banners and flags and uniforms walking by.
The crowds lining the street were deep, and it was all a bit surreal to stand in such a crowd watching another large crowd walk past! But it was fun, and we stayed much longer than we had expected to.
I was particularly impressed by the school bands. I don’t recall any school I attended ever having a band, and certainly not like some of those I saw yesterday: dozens or even hundreds of students in some cases all wearing flashy uniforms and playing every imaginable instrument (including xylophones and triangles!) as they walked through the city.
The above is a shot taken in one of the side-streets, which were used as a staging area. These were stuffed with people waiting to join the parade, and the streets were closed for 12 blocks to hold them all!
Notably this was the first parade since before Covid to have no restrictions, and it was great to participate in an event that confirmed the pandemic part of Covid is behind us (yes I know the disease isn’t, but life has moved on).
However security was very tight, and we were both particularly impressed by the unmarked cars and bodyguards that were part of the retinue of the NY Governor as she walked past.
Afterwards: more shopping and eating. Another full day in NYC, and as usual we’ll need a day or two to recover from all the activity 🙂