Throggs Neck St. Patrick’s Day Parade
Throggs Neck parade rewrites its
history, includes LGBTQ group
BY ALIYA SCHNEIDER
On Sunday, the Throggs Neck St.
Patricks Day parade will include an
LGBTQ group for the fi rst time — and
it is the very group that was turned
away from marching more than two
decades ago.
The Lavender and Green Alliance,
founded by Brendan Fay in 1994, will
carry its banner in the parade on Sunday.
The same group was welcomed to
march in the Bronx parade in 1999, but
the offer was retracted after various
groups — religious and not — resisted,
according to Fay. As reported by the
New York Times, the Ancient Order of
Hibernians of Bronx County and numerous
church groups said they would
not march in the parade if Lavender
and Green were allowed to participate.
According to a March 14, 1999, Lavender
and Green press release, the initial
Bronx embrace made headlines in
Irish community newspapers before
the parade committee “came under
pressure to withdraw the invitation or
face a parade without marchers.”
“What began as a big-hearted, generous
welcome by the Bronx Irish has
fl attened into a petty small-heartedness,”
Fay said in the 1999 release.
The release stated that members of the
group would gather at the Bronx parade
anyway, “hoping to join the line
of march, and if not, to protest their exclusion.”
And so they did, and Fay and fi ve
others were arrested. Days later, he
was arrested again with seven others
at the Brooklyn parade after protesting
the group’s exclusion there as well.
Fay, 63, told the Bronx Times in an
interview this week that the Throggs
Neck parade was the fi rst St. Patrick’s
Day parade across the fi ve boroughs
to welcome the LGBTQ group — even
though the offer was rescinded.
The following year, Fay took the
matter into his own hands and created
a new parade in Queens called St. Pat’s
for All, which is still held annually.
“When you’re arrested somewhere
and put in handcuffs, it doesn’t make
you want to rush back,” he said of the
other parades.
But this year he is basking in positivity,
eager for the history-making
moment on Sunday.
“Of course we all wish it didn’t take
us this long,” he said. “But you know
From left, Gene Walsh, Jeff Conway, Brendan Fay, Malachy McCourt and Danny Dromm parade
on 5th Avenue with the Lavender and Green Alliance banner for the fi rst time on March
17, 2016. Photo courtesy Lavender and Green Alliance
what I always say? It is not how long it
takes us to get there. What’s more important
is that we get to this place, and
we have.”
While individuals have waved rainbow
fl ags alongside their Irish fl ags at
the Bronx parade before, this is the
fi rst time an LGBTQ group is an offi -
cial participant, which Michael Brady,
executive director of the Third Avenue
Business Improvement, emphasized is
different than being tolerated.
“For this to be a sanctioned group,
a codifi ed group, is a huge step forward
for New York City, the borough and the
LGBTQ community,” Brady said in an
interview with the Bronx Times.
He expects there will be some
“hecklers,” but he hopes “the light outshines
the darkness,” especially as
more people realize their own family
members may be part of the LGBTQ
community, and that “being LGBT is
as ingrained in you as it is being Irish.
It’s part of your DNA.”
Attempts to interview the Throggs
Neck Benevolent Association, which
organizes the parade, were unsuccessful
by press time, but in a statement to
the Bronx Times said the association
is happy to have Lavender and Green
aboard.
BY ALIYA SCHNEIDER
As a Vietnamese refugee
and former political staffer,
Lisa Do Hoffl ich believes she
has the professional and life
experience needed to advocate
for working families in
state Senate District 36.
Hoffl ich, 49, fi rst came to
the United States at the age
of three, during the fall of
Saigon. Her family was sponsored
by a Lutheran church
in North Dakota, where winters
were cold, but her parents
couldn’t afford to pay the
heating bill.
So while her father worked
night shifts as a diesel mechanic,
Hoffl ich spent winter
dinners with her mother sitting
on overturned buckets
at a card table in front of the
open oven.
Because of this experience,
she said she understands
what families are going
through as energy bills
skyrocket.
“Because my parents had
to deal with that too,” she
said, “where they had to really
make that decision: Are
we going to be warm or are we
going to try to afford food?”
That young girl trying
to keep warm ultimately became
a journalism student
at New York University and
then an investigative television
news producer, before
pursuing a career in government.
Hoffl ich, who calls herself
a Pragmatic Progressive, has
lived in the Fleetwood section
of Mount Vernon for more
than two decades, where her
husband runs a dental practice
connected to their home.
But she doesn’t see borders
between the neighboring
Westchester communities
and the Bronx, where her fi ve
kids have attended Jewish
day school in Riverdale and
her family attends the Conservative
Synagogue Adath
Israel of Riverdale.
“I feel as much of a connection
to the Bronx as I do
for my Westchester side,” she
told the Bronx Times.
District 36 encompasses
neighborhoods across the
Bronx from the top of Riverdale
to the bottom of Silver
Beach, as well as Westchester
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, M 6 MAR. 11-17, 2022 BTR
NYC’s #1 Source for Political & Election News
County’s Pelham, Pelham
Manor and Mount Vernon,
with a similar footprint to the
previous District 34, which,
since 2019, has been represented
by Alessandra Biaggi,
a Pelham Progressive who is
running for Congress.
Hoffl ich has worked in
both state and federal government.
Most recently, she
worked for U.S. Sen. Kirsten
Gillibrand as the lower Hudson
Valley regional director
and special advisor for issues
related to Asian American
Pacifi c Islanders and human
traffi cking. Before that,
she was a legislative advisor
for New York State Assembly
members Amy Paulin,
who represents parts of Westchester
— including Pelham
Manor — and Sandy Galef,
who represents parts of Westchester
and Putnam counties.
Hoffl ich said her “claim
to fame” was being the only
staffer working for more than
one lawmaker at once in the
Assembly.
Through volunteer work
and legislative efforts, the
candidate said she has advocated
for domestic violence
survivors, human traffi cking
victims and LGBTQ people.
Ultimately, the most pressing
issues throughout District
36, to Hoffl ich, are public
safety and environmental
justice.
Hoffl ich, who chairs the
Westchester Asian American
Democratic committee —
formed in April in response
to anti-Asian American violence
— said she knows what
it’s like to feel uneasy about
her children’s safety.
“I really want to work to
make sure that this district
and New York state gets to
that place where I don’t have
to worry like this anymore,”
she said.
Addressing illegal gun transport
along I-95, curbing the number
of ghost guns, and investing
in education to keep students
in school are all part of her approach
to public safety. Also,
she believes there should be an
investment in police force training
on mental health issues and
young people.
She said residents she has
spoken with want more of a police
Lisa Do Hoffl ich has joined a populated
race for a state Senate seat
that represents parts of the Bronx
and Westchester. Photo courtesy Lisa
Do Hoffl ich
presence in the Bronx.
Hoffl ich also emphasized
the importance of fi ghting climate
change, especially with
two shorelines in the district.
She pointed to superfund sites,
asthma rates, air quality issues
and protecting green space, and
said remediating these problems
can create jobs along the way.
Assemblymember Gary Pretlow,
whose district encompasses
Bronx-adjacent Mount Vernon
and Yonkers, has endorsed Hoffl
ich.
Hoffl ich points to experience as a child refugee in Senate bid