It all came together for the West Indian American Day Carnival, which ended last Monday with a picture-perfect parade along Brooklyn’s Eastern Parkway.
The weather came through with a clear and sunny, not-too-warm late summer day for the hordes of vibrantly colored masqueraders featured along the two-mile parade route lined with enough spectators to rival a good-sized American city. It was really a great day and accident free on the parkway this year.
However, what helped make the event so festive and so much fun was teamwork. There was a year of intricate planning between West Indian American Day Carnival Association (WIADCA) president Yolanda Lezama-Clark, association officials and key city agencies.
The annual meetings, conference calls and planning sessions helped it all go smoothly, resulting in rows and rows of happy spectators, hundreds of costumed revelers and the convoy of music-toting flatbed trucks.
The FDNY Emergency Medical workers, the city Department of Transportation, the Sanitation Department, the Brooklyn Parks Commissioner’s staff and Brooklyn Community Boards 8 and 9 in Crown Heights were all involved, but the NYPD has the most visible role.
It is no coincidence that there were no major incidents reported during last week’s parade and that crime has been low for many, many years. In response to a short-lived, sad period of chain-snatching and roving gangs decades ago, police revamped their parade coverage, which included ending the parade at 6 p.m.
Today, the NYPD uses uniformed officers, plainclothes cops, rooftop observers, helicopters and those sometimes-frustrating crowd-control barriers to cope with the city-sized population of parade-goers.
Over the decades, this WIADCA-NYPD teamwork has evolved and responded to crises. They have instituted and strictly enforced safety regulations regarding parade vehicles and their drivers. Adding life-saving wheel guards to the big flatbed trucks and assigning police officers to vehicles during the event are just two examples.
A couple - he from Philadelphia and she from southern New Jersey - were first taken aback by the very visible police presence along Eastern Parkway and in the subway stations along the parade route. But that uneasy feeling was soon overtaken by the seamless presentation of the mas bands, the sounds of soca, calypso and reggae, the tantalizing smells of vendor-hawked Caribbean foods and the waving flags, flags, flags from all over the Caribbean.
By the end of the day, visitors were raving about the carnival parade. But it just doesn’t happen. It takes teamwork.
Hanna’s fatal force
The deadly impact of the 2008 hurricane season continued in Haiti last week as Tropical Storm Hanna brought strong winds and rain to the island, which is still coping with damage and fatalities from Hurricane Gustav and Tropical Storm Fay.
Last week, hundreds of persons died and thousands of residents in Gonaives, Les Cayes, and other towns were hit hard by severe flooding, high winds and deadly mudslides. International relief organizations were working to provide island residents aid such as emergency shelters, food and drinking water.
Candidate Graham launches race
With the opening of her campaign headquarters and a web site, candidate Yvonne Graham is off and running in the race for Brooklyn Borough President.
The Jamaica-born Graham, who has served as deputy Brooklyn president for the past seven years, is seeking to replace Borough President Marty Markowitz, who’s leaving office due to term limits.
On her new web site, visitors can learn about her extensive background in politics, health and social services, how to volunteer to aid the campaign, how to host a fund-raiser, and how to donate to her campaign effort.
For information visit www.yvonnejgraham.com or contact her campaign office at 718-399-9003.
Hamilton the statesman
The free traveling exhibition “Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Made Modern America,” which examines the influential and lasting contributions the Caribbean immigrant made during the nation’s infancy, can be seen at Queens Library in Flushing, 41-17 Main Street at Kissena Boulevard, through October 3.
Hamilton, who was an American Founding Father, the first U.S. Treasury Secretary and the creator of the New York Stock Exchange, was born on the island of Nevis and came to America as a teenager.
For information, call 718-661-1200 and visit www.queenslibrary.org.
League hosts dinner event
Jamaica Progressive League will be celebrating its 72nd anniversary with a dinner dance and awards event on Saturday in the Bronx at the Wembley Athletic Club, 550 East 239th Street, starting at 8 p.m.
Assemblymember Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) will be the guest speaker at the event. For information and tickets, call 718-994-5496, 917-860-4009, 718-881-5502 or 718-284-0204.
This column is reprinted from the September 7 Sunday editions of The New York Daily News. If you have any items suitable for this column please e-mail them to jmccallister@nydailynews.com.
