By TimesLedger Staff
Huge crowds expected at Little Neck-Douglaston parade
As many as 90,000 people are expected to turn out for this year’s Little Neck-Douglaston Memorial Day Parade next week as the annual march celebrates its 83rd year in northeast Queens.
The event, which will take place May 31, is the largest annual Memorial Day parade in the United States.
“Each year we morph this little hamlet in northeast Queens into Mayberry, R.F.D.,” parade Chairman James Rodgers said. “It’s a wonderful way to spend the holiday.”
This year’s parade probably will draw in 60,000 spectators throughout the course of the event as well as thousands of participants.
Marchers include the Girl Scouts, numerous military organizations, pipers and marching bands, civic associations and elected officials, such as Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Borough President Helen Marshall, city Comptroller John Liu and state Sen. Frank Padavan (R-Bellerose) and other representatives.
The parade, which has been held in northeast Queens since 1927, will honor the 65th anniversary of World War II’s end as its theme for 2010.
The day’s events will kick off with an interfaith service at Zion Episcopal Church at 243-01 Northern Blvd. in Douglaston and will be followed by the parade, which will begin at 2 p.m. at the corner of Jason Avenue and Northern Boulevard in Great Neck, L.I.
It will then proceed west on Northern Boulevard to 244th Street into the schoolyard of St. Anastasia School in Little Neck. Divisions will assemble at 1 p.m. at Jason Avenue, Great Neck Road, Nassau Road and Glenwood Street.
Honorees this year will include Maj. Gen. William Monk III, commanding general of the 99th Regional Support Command at New Jersey’s Fort Dix and Stanley “Bud” Grant, who will receive a community award for his work as the president of the Friends of the Congressional Glaucoma Caucus Foundation.
The parade’s Man of the Year awards will go to Edward Kilduff, chief of department for the city Fire Department, and Terry McGee, a detective with the city Police Department who has received more than 100 NYPD commendations.
—Nathan Duke
College Point, Whitestone to hold Memorial Day parades
The College Point and Whitestone Memorial Day parades are an annual occasion for area residents and veterans to join together to remember the United States’ fallen soldiers and celebrate its military history.
The College Point Memorial Day Parade is being hosted by College Point Citizens for Memorial Day and the procession will begin at the intersection of 26th Avenue and College Point Boulevard. The parade will run from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.
For more information about the College Point parade, call 718-939-3393.
The Whitestone Veterans Memorial Association’s Memorial Day Parade begins at 12 p.m. May 31 at the intersection of 149th Street and 15th Drive.
For more information about the Whitestone parade, call 718-767-4323.
— Connor Adams Sheets
Parades to honor the fallen in Ridgewood, Maspeth
Organizers of this year’s Memorial Day parades in Ridgewood and Maspeth are asking folks not to forget the true reason for the holiday: honoring those who fought and died for their country.
The Maspeth parade celebrates its 26th anniversary this year and was started by Ken Rudzewick, a U.S. Army veteran, in 1984.
This year’s parade down Grand Avenue starts at 1.p.m. at Walter A. Garlinge Memorial Park. The memorial service begins about 2 p.m. at the World War II and Korean War monument near the bank.
This year’s grand marshals are Mary Ann Walter, a public school teacher, and World War II veteran John Dolan.
In Ridgewood and Glendale, the communities’ cooperative parade begins at 11 a.m. Monday at the Ridgewood memorial, near the intersection of Cypress and Myrtle avenues.
Participants will walk to the Glendale veteran’s triangle at the intersection of Myrtle Avenue and 70th Street, where services will begin between 11:30 a.m. and noon.
— Chauncey Alcorn
