Friday, March 1, 2013

Inclusion, Neighborly Love, Part of Alternative St. Pat’s Parade in Queens, opposite of the elitist, exclusionary, 5th Avenue Manhattan St. Patrick’s Day Pararde


Fr. Mychal Judge, Saint of 911
Honoree of Queens "St. Pat's for All" Parade


When the Cardinal and his elitist corporate friends and bankers want a Fascist Like display of blind obedience in the annual 5th Avenue St Patrick's Parade every year, Public Drunkedness is okay but no signs or expressions of freedom or private personal opinions, they are VERBOTEN. 

There are alternatives and there is life in the other boroughs and outside the control of the stone canyons and stone hearts of the elitist ruling class in Manhattan.




“I know what it’s like to be told you’re not welcome,” Mr. Fay said as he rushed around his Astoria, Queens, home making last-minute preparations for this Sunday’s parade, which starts at 2 p.m. in Woodside and runs for two hours. It begins at Skillman Avenue and 47th Street and proceeds east on Skillman, ending at Woodside Avenue and 58th Street. …


With the phone ringing constantly, Mr. Fay finalized details for portable toilets, pipers and puppets to be held aloft by children. The parade has grown in size every year, and this year he expects more than 2,000 participants.


Bars that once wanted nothing to do with the parade are now opening early for breakfast on parade day, he said.


As for the parade, he said, “We err on the side of hospitality and inclusiveness.” And with the doors wide open, he has certainly amassed a wide array of regular attendees, including from many ethnic groups in this extremely diverse area of Queens.


At the moment, Mr. Fay was making arrangements with Pakistani and Bengali contingents. There will be Bolivian, Ecuadorean, Korean and Chinese groups, as well as a troupe of young black and Latino step-dancers from the Bronx.


Mr. Fay called a Turkish contingent seeking to march for the first time, to honor the food shipments that Turkey sent Ireland during the potato famine. Then there was the Mexican group marching in tribute to that country’s San Patricio battalion in the Mexican-American War.


“We try to reflect the spirit of New York – we’re all neighbors, we marry each other,” Mr. Fay said in his living room, which is presided over by a green statue of St. Patrick, rescued from a trash heap, with its arms broken off.


As usual, the parade will honor the Rev. Father Mychal Judge, the gay Fire Department chaplain who marched in the parade in 2000 and died on Sept. 11, 2001, at the World Trade Center. And as usual there will be a moment of silence for Robert Rygor, an early critic of the Fifth Avenue parade who died of complications from H.I.V. in 2004.





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