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C RY D E R
P O I N T
MARCH St. Pat’s for All march this Sunday
promotes Ireland, journalism & peace
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
rpozarycki@qns.com / @robbpoz
Sunnyside and Woodside will be seeing
green this Sunday as thousands
take part in the St. Pat’s for All Parade.
One of the city’s earliest celebrations of
St. Patrick’s Day, the festivities take place
beginning at 1 p.m. on Sunday, March 4,
in Sunnyside at the corner of Skillman
Avenue and 43rd Street. Musicians, community
organizations, youth groups and
proud marchers of Irish descent will wind
their way through local streets before
ending up in Woodside at the corner of
Woodside Avenue and 58th Street.
Now in its 19th renewal, the march was
the first St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New
York City to welcome members of the
LGBT community to participate together
under a banner. Even as the St. Patrick’s
Day Parade in Manhattan now permits
LGBT organizations to march, the St. Pat’s
for All Parade continues its tradition, and
has grown into one of the largest St. Patrick’s
Day celebrations in the entire city.
Just like last year, the 2018 St. Pat’s
for All March has two grand marshals:
award-winning New York Times journalist
Dan Barry and producer/activist Dr.
Kathleen Sullivan.
During his tenure at The New York
Times, Barry has worked at all kinds of
beats, from covering tragedies such as the
Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and Hurricane Katrina;
to heading up (at various times) the
City Hall, police and Long Island bureaus.
Sullivan, meanwhile, has spent much of
her career devoted toward encouraging nuclear
disarmament around the world. She
12 CRYDER POINT COURIER | MARCH 2018 | WWW.QUEENSCOURIER.COM
is director of Hibakusha Stories, an artsbased
program that tells the stories of those
who survived the Hiroshima and Nagasaki
atomic bombings at the end of World War
II to generations of schoolchildren. Sullivan
is also credited for helping the United
Nations pass last July the Treaty on the Prohibition
of Nuclear Weapons.
If you’re interested in participating, visit
stpatsforall.org for more details.
Photo by Josef Pinlac
The St. Pat’s for All Parade in Woodside is on March 4.
Here’s your guide to the first-ever
Bayside St. Patrick’s Day Parade
BY SUZANNE MONTEVERDI
smonteverdi@qns.com / @smont76
Bring out the Irish in you at this homegrown
celebration in Bayside next month.
The first Bayside Saint Patrick’s Day Parade
will take place on March 24, beginning
at 10 a.m. The family-friendly event
will run along Bell Boulevard between
36th and 41st Avenues and celebrate Irish
heritage and culture.
Kieran Mahoney, a Bayside local and
one of the event organizers, told QNS that
close to 20 community groups will participate
in the parade. Irish pipe bands and
dance schools, as well as groups from local
institutions including Holy Cross High
School, Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament
Catholic Academy and Sacred Heart
Catholic Academy of Bayside, are among
the groups slated to march.
Due to a strong response from local
groups, organizers had to move up the
date to accept applications to march.
“We’re getting larger than we expected,”
Mahoney said. “I’m not completely surprised
at the response, but I am surprised
about just how many people want to be
involved and have reached out to us.”
Mahoney first spoke to QNS in October,
when the parade was still in the planning
stages. Since then, the event has been cemented
and grown to an “overwhelming
level.”
“It definitely has grown much more
since our original conversation” the organizer
noted. “For the first year, it really has
been unbelievable.”
Over the last few months, Mahoney and
other members of the Bayside St. Patrick’s
Day Committee have organized a series
of events to either raise funds or “keep
the momentum going” leading up to the
event. In January, around 250 attendees
attended a dinner dance at VIVO! Mediterranean
Grill & Catering celebrating the
parade honorees. A series of Irish music
events continue to take place at local bar
and eatery, Monahan & Fitzgerald.
A number of local businesses have also
signed on as event sponsors.
The grand marshal for the parade is Patrolmen’s
Benevolent Association of the
City of New York (NYCPBA) President
Pat Lynch. March aides are Mary McCauley,
Jeff Reinhart, Francis McLoughlin, Fr.
Robert Whelan and Frank Talty. Plans are
being made to produce a program, which
will list all community participants and be
distributed the day of the event.
The public is invited to attend the free
community event. Those interested in
learning more or getting event updates
should visit the group’s Facebook page or
contact Mahoney at mahoneybaysideat
gmail.com. A website is in the works.
Photo via Flickr/jwpearce
