COURIER LIFE, MAY 1-7, 2020 15
OUR ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO THE BOROUGH OF KINGS
Face off
Mermaid Parade
organizers launch
design competition
BY ROSE ADAMS
Call it a maskerpiece!
The organizers behind Coney Island’s
iconic Mermaid Parade are
bringing their love for quirkiness and
creativity to a new competition: an
online face mask design contest. The
“Put on a Funny Face Mask Contest”
celebrates unique masks while honoring
mask makers who have provided
the world with needed protection
throughout the COVID-19 crisis, said
its creator.
“We want to take advantage of this
moment of an incredible explosion
from the creative community,” said
Mark Alhadeff, a board member of the
non-profi t arts organization Coney Island
USA, which hosts the recentlycanceled
Mermaid Parade.
The virtual contest, which began
accepting submissions on April 24,
asks participants to submit photos of
their handmade creations, which will
be judged by a panel of between 20 and
50 celebrity judges — including many
former Kings and Queens of the Mermaid
Parade — according to six categories:
• Best overall mask
• Best Coney Island-themed mask
• Best Mermaid/Neptune mask (Sea
creatures)
• Best formal mask
• Best historical mask
• Best kids’ mask: (A mask for a kid,
or a mask that makes you a kid. You
decide!)
Spectrum News NY1, which is sponsoring
the event, will choose the best
mask that celebrates New York City
for the “One New York Mask” category.
The competition will also feature
the “People’s Choice” award for the
mask that garners the most votes from
the public, and the “Judges’ Choice”
mask chosen by the “inebriated and
corrupt” hosts of the event.
Entries must be submitted by May
24, and the winners will be announced
around June 1, Alhadeff said. Coney
Island USA plans to broadcast the ceremony
and award non-cash prizes to
the winners, but has not yet nailed
down its exact procedure.
Contrary to the event’s name, the
masks don’t need to be funny or provide
adequate protection in order to
win, said Alhadeff, a longtime judge
for the Mermaid Parade.
“It’s all kinds of face masks, and not
just funny face masks,” he said. “It’s
really about mask aesthetic.”
Alhadeff said he was inspired to
launch the contest by his wife, who
has made more than 200 masks with
her sewing machine since the start of
the outbreak.
“Sherry Davis, she was the total inspiration
for it,” he said. “One person,
200 masks. They’re not simple masks,
they’re fi tted in four different sizes
with fi lter inserts.”
To honor mask makers, the competition
will include a “Community Service”
award for a mask maker or organization
that has best served the Coney
Island community, and the “Best Mask
Wearing Encouragement Meme” for
the best online message that encourages
mask-wearing.
The event’s kickoff comes less than
one week after Mayor Bill de Blasio announced
that the Mermaid Parade and
all other June events are indefi nitely
postponed to prevent the spread of the
virus. Dick Zigun, the founder of the
event and president of Coney Island
USA, said he hopes to host the 38th annual
parade either later this year or
over the internet.
“There will be some version of the
Mermaid Parade, ideally a real parade
in the street later this summer. If not,
then maybe a virtual online parade,”
he told Brooklyn Paper last week.
COVER STORY: The hosts of the Mermaid Parade launched a face mask design contest that
honors the most inventive and creative, handmade masks. Sherry Davis, pictured below, has
sewn hundreds of face masks since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Photos courtesy of Esti Grifel (top) and Sherry Davis (bottom)