WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES MAY 30, 2019 27
The last Anniversary Day parade in R’wood
BY THE OLD TIMER
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
EDITORIAL@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
@RIDGEWOODTIMES
Public schools will once again
observe “Brooklyn-Queens
Day,” otherwise known as
Anniversary Day, on June 6, as they
have done for more than a century. But
around Ridgewood, it’s not the same.
For decades, children and parents
across the Greater Ridgewood area
looked forward to Anniversary Day,
a celebration marked with colorful
parades, faithful music and parties.
The holiday was particularly big
among the Protestant congregations
of Our Neighborhood. After all,
Anniversary Day was an annual
celebration of the fi rst Sunday schools
to open in Brooklyn, Queens and
Long Island. But over the last halfcentury,
as the congregations shrank,
participation in the festivities around
Ridgewood dwindled with it.
The 2009 Anniversary Day Parade
was a shell of previous editions of the
march. A few hundred people — mostly
from nearby Redeemer Lutheran School
in Glendale — walked a short distance
along Catalpa Avenue in Ridgewood.
The small gathering, however, did not
diminish the enthusiasm of those who
marched in celebration of their faith.
But that year’s Anniversary Day
Parade proved to be the fi nal one that
Ridgewood would see. The sad news
broke in the May 17, 2010 issue of the
Ridgewood Times/Times Newsweekly.
The story follows:
For the fi rst time in a century, there will
be no Anniversary Day parade through
the streets of Ridgewood this June.
The Ridgewood-Glendale Sunday
School Association announced on
Monday, May 17, that the 101st march
— scheduled to take place on Brooklyn-
Queens Day on June 10 — would not
take place due to a variety of reasons,
including declining interest and
reductions in police coverage.
“Because of the city’s fi scal crisis and
budget cuts, the Police Department
requested that we shorten the parade
route,” said Wayne Vandermark, the
parade’s grand marshal for 30 years, in
a letter sent to the Times Newsweekly.
“They were also unable to provide a
police escort for churches farther out in
Glendale who would be bringing fl oats
to the parade.”
The decision to cancel the parade— an
annual celebration by local Protestant
churches of the founding of the first
Sunday schools on Long Island in
1816—was also made based on the poor
turnout for the organization’s centennial
march last year. Vandermark noted
that “it was felt that there might be fewer
participants this year.”
Born out of Rally Day marches held
by numerous Protestant churches
in Brooklyn during the 19th century,
Anniversary Day was offi cially recognized
by the state legislature in 1905. Falling on
the Thursday aft er the fi rst Monday in
June, the occasion was recognized as a
legal holiday for Brooklyn public schools;
approximately 54 years later, Queens
public schools recognized Anniversary
Day as a holiday.
The fi rst Anniversary Day parade in
Ridgewood occurred in 1910, with a host
of local churches and Sunday School
programs participating in the event every
year. Schoolchildren who got the day off
dressed up and marched in colorful
fl oats decorated with streamers and
posters with the Sunday school theme.
Musical members of each church
played religious and patriotic hymns
on drums, recorders, glockenspiels
and other instruments as they walked
through Ridgewood. Other congregation
members strode down local streets
with their pastor while carrying fl ags
and banners bearing the name and
affi liation of their churches.
Though the Anniversary Day Parade
drew thousands of participants and
onlookers for many years, the crowds
dwindled as time went on and the
congregations of local churches
dropped in size. More recent marches
drew hundreds of adults and children
and the parade route was truncated to
Fresh Pond Road between Myrtle and
67th avenues.
Last year’s centennial march included
representatives of the Glendale Reformed
Church, Redeemer Lutheran Church
and School in Glendale, Ridgewood
Presbyterian Church, St. John’s United
Methodist Church in Ridgewood, St.
Mark’s United Church of Christ, Trinity
Reformed Church in Ridgewood,
Trinity St. Andrews Lutheran Church
in Maspeth and the United Methodist
Church of Glendale.
The 2009 parade started with a
brief prayer service at Catalpa Avenue
near Fresh Pond Road, then proceeded
westbound along Catalpa Avenue to
Forest Avenue. The crowd then marched
up Forest Avenue to 67th Road, then
along 60th Street, 68th Road and 60th
Lane before returning to the starting
point.
But the shrinking number of
participants combined with police
cutbacks forced the Sunday School
Association to reconsider plans for
this year’s parade. Upon speaking
with the leaders of local congregations,
Vandermark told this paper in a phone
interview, it was determined that the
time had come to make a change.
“We did it for 100 years. We were happy
to get to that point,” said Vandermark,
who served as the grand marshal of the
parade for the last 30 years. He thanked
the community and all those who
participated in past marches for their
support through the years.
* * *
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 request.
Members of Redeemer Lutheran School in
Glendale marching in the 2009 Anniversary
Day Parade along Catalpa Avenue in
Ridgewood. Ridgewood Times archives
A previous Anniversary
Day parade along Fresh
Pond Road in Ridgewood.
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