State Senator Brad Hoylman, who as Judiciary chair steered major
LGBTQ rights advances this year, shares a kiss with husband David
Sigal.
Bunnies of Pride.
➤ HERITAGE OF PRIDE,, from p.4
MICHAEL LUONGO
MICHAEL LUONGO
Later that evening, the Empire State Building
would be awash with rainbows, along with
many other New York City structures, including
the World Trade Center and Madison Square
Garden.
This year’s parade was also structured to
mix activists marching in contingents woven
through with corporate sponsors. In some
ways, this seemed a response to arguments the
parade had become too commercialized, which
is why an alternative parade, Reclaim Pride’s
Queer Liberation March , was held earlier in the
day along the parade’s 1970 route.
Corporations did indeed make for a huge part
of the parade, from Facebook to Disney and
ABC, which was broadcasting the parade, to a
variety of airlines and other travel companies,
banks, and others.
In keeping with the theme of WorldPride, this
year’s was one of the most international Prides
ever held in New York, a city already known for
its diversity. Previous and future WorldPride
host cities and organizations were among the
MICHAEL LUONGO
Out gay Speaker Corey Johnson dances his way in front of his City
Council contingent.
MICHAEL LUONGO
Amit Paley (center), the head of the Trevor Project (one of the
parade’s grand marshals), leads his contingent.
fi rst of the groups to set off during the march,
from Italian groups like Circolo Di Cultura
Mario Mieli, the event’s fi rst hosts. Along with
Rome, Madrid, Toronto, and London, all cities
that previously hosted WorldPride, marched,
in addition to Copenhagen Pride, where World-
Pride will take place in 2021.
One foreign delight that pleased the crowd
was fashion entrepreneur Donatella Versace,
sister of slain gay designer Gianni Versace. She
was part of a string of celebrities and other notables
appearing on fl oats in addition to the
“Pose” cast, from Vanessa Williams with radio
station KTU, Felipe Rose, better known as the
Indian from the Village People, with God’s Love
We Deliver, and Judy Shepard, the mother of
murdered gay college student Matthew Shepard.
Barnes and Noble sought to honor famous
LGBTQ writers and activists for other causes
in its contingent, with writers like Sam Miller,
Mona Eltahawy, and others carrying placards
of their own or others’ works.
Following an apology from New York City Police
Commissioner James P. O’Neill for his department’s
role in the original Stonewall raid
that led to the riots, WorldPride 2019 seemed to
be one where the police perhaps exuded an especially
tangible friendliness. Offi cers at times
MICHAEL LUONGO
A marcher from UTOPIA, the United Territories of Pacifi c Islander
Alliance.
danced with parade-goers and adorned themselves
in rainbows stickers and other paraphernalia,
their uniforms coming to match the
rainbow-swathed NYPD police cars launched
for this year’s Pride season.
Gay Pride is arguably the most visually striking
of all of New York’s parades. Caribbean contingents
brought a feathered sense of Carnival
to the parade, mesmerizing the crowd as usual.
Formed with the help of many contingents was
a massive rainbow fl ag, which stretched for
blocks along Fifth Avenue, stepping off long after
nightfall, the art-deco crown of the Empire
State Building shining above it in a complementary
pattern.
Still, some of the most visually impressive
also broke the rainbow mold. These contingents
included the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay
and Lesbian Art, in partnership with Deutsche
Bank and the drum band Fogo Azul, its participants
carrying Renaissance-style banners
honoring LGBTQ artists, alive and departed,
as well as UTOPIA, whose members adorned
themselves with clothing made from traditional
Polynesian tapa cloth, some capes trailing
many yards behind them along the pavement.
Out Olympic swimmer Amini Fonua of
New Zealander and Tongan descent was among
those in the contingent.
The most striking aspect of the parade was
how long it actually lasted, along its route from
26th Street and Fifth Avenue, where it passed
the Flatiron Building, bending along into Greenwich
Village to pass the Stonewall Inn, before
returning uptown, past the new AIDS Memorial
on Seventh Avenue. Though scheduled to end
around 11:00 p.m. according to the organizers,
fl oats and contingents were still stepping off
around that time. Among the very last of the
international groups was Taiwan, where same
sex marriage just became the law of the land,
hours off schedule. Still, diehard fans were
along the route cheering the parade into the
next morning.
This was, for sure, a Pride like no other.
GayCityNews.com | July 4 - July 17, 2019 5
/GayCityNews.com
