WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES MAY 21, 2020 23
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
during even-numbered years.
The United Veterans and Fraternal
Organizations of Maspeth is
the driving force behind Maspeth’s
annual Memorial Day Parade, generally
held on the Sunday immediately
preceding the holiday. Begun
in around 1984, the community
march begins at Garlinge Memorial
Triangle (corner of Grand and
57th avenues) and snakes its way
through the neighborhood before
concluding at Maspeth Memorial
Park, located at Grand Avenue and
69th Street.
American Legion Continental
Post 1424 hosts the Forest Hills
Memorial Day parade along Metropolitan
Avenue. The annual march
usually starts near the post’s headquarters
on Metropolitan Avenue
near Ascan Avenue, then heads east
toward Remsen Cemetery Park, just
off the corner of Trotting Course
Lane and Alderton Street.
The cemetery holds some of the
remains of the Jeromus Remsen family,
which dates back to the Colonial
era; many of the family members
fought on the Patriot side during
the American Revolution.
The Little Neck-Douglaston
Memorial Day Parade Committee
organizes what’s considered to be
the oldest continuous Memorial Day
march in the country. The march,
first held in 1927, generally marches
along Northern Boulevard between
Jayson Avenue in Great Neck and
245th Street in Douglaston.
On the parade’s official website,
Patriots on the march at the 2016 Maspeth Memorial Day Parade. QNS fi le photo by by Allen Ngai
Chair Tom Carty offered some advice
to local residents on how they
can best commemorate Memorial
Day this year.
“The Parade Board asks that this
Memorial Day you pause, from the
safety of your own home, to honor
the service men and women who
have made the ultimate sacrifice,”
he wrote. “We ask that you pray for
their families, as our nation owes
them a debt that can never be repaid.
We encourage you to share these
sentiments on social media and hope
that those families will take comfort
in knowing that although we cannot
be together in person, their loved
ones are not forgotten.”
In honor of all those who paid the
ultimate sacrifice in defense of our
country, we present this week the
famous poem “In Flanders Fields,” a
World War I tribute written by John
McCrae.
In Flanders fi elds the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fl y
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we
lie
In Flanders fi elds.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies
grow
In Flanders fi elds.
* * *
If you have any remembrances or old
photographs of “Our Neighborhood:
The Way It Was” that you would like to
share with our readers, please write to
the Old Timer, c/o Ridgewood Times, 38-
15 Bell Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361, or send
an email to editorial@ridgewoodtimes.
com. Any print photographs mailed to
us will be carefully returned to you upon
The 2016 Little Neck/Douglaston Memorial Day Parade. Dominick Totino Photography request.
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