By Jeremy Walsh
Sunnyside is gearing up once more for the city’s gay-friendly St. Patrick’s Day Parade this Sunday.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) were expected to be among the marchers at the 11th annual “St. Pat’s for All,” which starts at 1 p.m. at 43rd Street and Skillman Avenue and goes to 61st Street and Woodside Avenue.
Councilman Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights) and Mary Lanning, chairwoman of the NYC Clothing Bank, are this year’s grand marshals. Dromm is one of the borough’s two openly gay Council members, along with Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside), who will help kick off the festivities.
“Our St. Pats for All 2010 is a generous coming together of business, communities and musicians who for a few hours turn the streets of Sunnyside and Woodside into “Ireland of the welcomes,’” said parade Co-chairman Brendan Fay.
This year’s parade is to open with blessings by Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and native American leaders.
But new this year will be a contingent of Haitian musicians and groups hoping to raise some money to help the earthquake-stricken nation.
“Irish have known hunger, death and famine,” said Fay, who met the groups while working on a fund-raiser earlier this year.
And in the wake of the 8.8-magnitude earthquake that killed at least 700 people in Chile last weekend, the parade’s Chilean contingent will be raising awareness of the need for charitable contributions.
Fay credited the owner of La Gaviota, a Woodside Chilean restaurant, for inspiring them to open the parade to groups outside the gay and lesbian sphere. Fay was in the restaurant with a friend discussing starting their own parade after the gay and lesbian Irish group Lavender and Green Alliance was barred from marching in the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Manhattan in 1999.
The Gaviota owner showed them the picture of one of Chile’s first leaders, Bernardo O’Higgins.
“He said maybe we could put a Chilean group in the parade,” Fay said. “It was just one of those moments that became a transformative moment for the parade’s identity.”
Other new groups in the parade this year include Bolivian dancers, a Chilean group, the NAACP’s Queens chapter and the borough’s Mexican community.
Irish groups include the O’Donovan Rossa Society, Brehon Law Society, Rosemary Nelson memorial group and The Winged Fist organization carrying banners of Irish American sports heroes from the 1908 Olympics.
Gay community groups taking part in the parade will include the parents group PFLAG Queens, members of the Lavender and Green Alliance and Dignity NY, a group for LGBT Catholics, and SAGE, the senior citizen outreach program. The Red Cross will serve tea and hot chocolate.
Kathleen D’Arcy, the parade’s co-chairwoman, said that while the parade celebrates people young and old, the children tend to be the stars.
“The best part of the parade is watching the expressions on kids’ faces as they watch the giant puppets and hear the pipers,” she said.
Reach reporter Jeremy Walsh by e-mail at jewalsh@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4564.
