The FDNY pipe and drum band at the end of the parade.
Marching up 5th Avenue.
Another shot up 5th Avenue, follow the green line!
Myself with Division 1 of the AOH, holding the banner.
Myself with one of Division 1's VPs.
The banner, Thomas Rogers Memorial.
Another shot of the banner for the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Division 1.
This past Thursday, New York City held it's 250th annual St. Patrick's Day parade. It's one of the city's oldest traditions, dating back to 1762, when ex-patriot British soldiers from Ireland marched in formation up lower Broadway, playing traditional songs, wearing green and speaking Irish, which was all banned in their home country. After the Revolution, the parade transformed from being a military review of British soldiers to being a gathering of the many religious, cultural, and social organizations of the city's Irish. By the the time Old St. Patrick's Cathedral on Mott and Prince Streets was finished in 1815, these various groups would start from their church or headquarters, around such places as St. Peter's on Barclay and Vessey Streets, St. James' between the underpass of the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, and St. Joseph's on West 8th Street and 6th Avenue, and all march toward the cathedral where they would be met by the Bishop of New York. A mass or prayer service would be held where the bishop and other dignitaries and politicians would speak, and then everyone would disperse to start celebrating.
As the heart of the city migrated further north, so did the Archdiocese with a new cathedral on 50th Street and 5th Avenue, and so did the parade. By 1851, the parade began to to unite under a single grand marshall and be led by the newly formed 69th Regiment of the Irish Brigade, which it still is to this day. Also, since 1851, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, who formed at St. James Church in 1836, have sponsored the parade. I started marching in 2007 after I had joined to AOH a almost a year earlier in April 2006. Originally founded to defend and protect Irish Catholics in America by guarding churches that would otherwise be vandalized and burnt to the ground, and standing up for the rights of neglected Irish workers, they seemed to have evolved into an organization of older guys who talk about organizing charity drives, cultural events, the Christmas party, and what time and where to meet for the parade on March 17th. All in all, pretty light stuff ... and, no, ILGO and all those gay people who are supposedly "banned" have never once been mentioned. But the parade, the largest in the world, upholds strict traditions by not having political activist groups, pro-Catholic or not, march, as well as remaining strictly a marchers' parade by not allowing floats or cars. As a member of Division 1, we meet where it all began, far downtown in Manhattan, at the Mercantile Grill on Pearl Street, not too far from Fraunces Tavern at the end of the block, where George Washington said farewell to his officers and went back home to Virginia at the end of the Revolution. However, being a Upper-East-Sider, this is my excuse for never making it to the meetings.
The parade is always backed up, and we stood on 46th Street and Vanderbilt Avenue for about two hours, and then finally was the long haul up to 79th Street. Unfortunately, the parade, and all parades in the city, were cut short by Bloomberg starting in April of last year to supposedly cut costs on sanitation. Last year's St. Patrick's Day parade was the last to march up to 86th Street and past the Irish Historical Society on 83rd Street, as the new rule went into effect on April 1st of last year. That's Bloomberg for you: if he decides he wants to do something, he just goes right ahead and does it, often despite what most New Yorkers want. It's a hefty walk just the same, though, and as it nears the end you seem to get a less formal crowd of little kids holding out their hands to slap five and older "big kids" drunkenly yelling things. All in all, there's a lot of history and tradition to all of this, and I'm happy to be able to take part in the largest parade in the world. Celebrating afterward is always good, too.
The umbrella presented to the church, signifying its new rank as a basilica.
A closer shot of the altar
Another shot of the organ.
The organ.
A Chinese family that wished to take their picture with me.
A shot of the crowd during the reception.
Another shot of the crowd.
That skull on a cell phone that is common on condemned buildings.
This past week I got an e-mail from the Hibernians that Old St. Patrick's Cathedral, on Mott and Prince Streets in Little Italy, was being upgraded to a basilica, an honor sometimes given to important churches in a city, making Old St. Patrick's the Pope's official church in New York. Completed in 1815, it's unique-looking because it has no windows in the front, and high walls guard the graves on either side, a reflection of the anti-Catholic sentiment at the time, as rioters would destroy the stained-glass, and at one point nativist mobs even tried to burn the church to the ground. Despite its centrality to early Catholic life in this country, the Archbishop said that while filling out the paper work to apply for basilica status, he needed to prove that the church was still an active and important house of worship, and the Archbishop noted that despite all it's history, this church was not a "museum", but a "living, vibrant parish", as could be seen by the hundreds of Chinese faithful who packed the sides of the church, while some important guests took up the pews.
I was hastily given the job of an usher and a green, white and orange sash, and told to seat a well-dressed older Chinese woman in pew 5. She was with Father Jonathan Morris, who often appears on Fox News. I knew I recognized him but didn't say anything ... then I took the obviously important Chinese woman 5 rows to the back of the church instead of the front. My mistake. I just told her it was my first day here. I tend to say that a lot.
Anyway, it was a little unorganized as I had to guard two pews for Hibernians marching in the procession, trying my best to stop a whole slew of octogenarians who were trying to sit there, most of them with canes, one of them even blind. I didn't exactly feel comfortable asserting my authority over these people, and nobody was really going to listen to me anyway. But even though the Hibernians and Knights of Columbus bickered for a little while over who needed to sit where, and that two seats in the second pew needed to be saved for Justice Scalia and his wife (who I don't think showed up), eventually everything got settled just in time for the ushers to start spreading the word to each other that the Archbishop was coming through the door at any minute.
I stood in the back throughout most of the service mainly hoping that I wasn't in the way, until the head of the Hibernians asked me to go up to the front of the church so that I could help supervise the filing out at the end. So I walked up the center aisle alone during the closing prayer while the Knights of Columbus flanked me, about twenty on each side, a bunch of old guys in full uniform and swords drawn. When I got to the front of the church I made sure not to trip or fall backward or anything because I knew everyone would see me but at the end of the service Cardinal Egan came up to me and said, "Thanks for coming."
Next was off to the reception, where I went straight for the buffet table because I hadn't eaten all day. The place was packed and the line barely moving, and unfortunately prevented me from talking to Archbishop Dolan again. By the time I spotted him, he was already leaving. He gave a general wave in my direction and then a cop escorted him out the door.
I did meet Cardinal Egan, though. He was signing programs, and luckily had time for one more. He said, "So tell me about yourself."
Now, I knew I'd get about thirty seconds to talk, so I tried to make it count. "Well, Your Eminence, I'm with the Hibernians, I'm the Division 1 Historian, and I'm happy to be a part of all this. This is a great church with a lot of history." (Or something like that.)
He signed my program and then said, "And off we go." And quickly walked out the door with a priest. He had said something similar the last time I saw him ... he's obviously coached.
While wandering around the reception, a Chinese woman who barely spoke any English and had two small children came up to me and gestured to a camera. I thought she wanted me to take a picture, but soon realized that she wanted her four-year-old son to take a picture of her with me. The lady obviously thought I was more important than I really was. Her son could barely work the camera, taking a couple of pictures of the ceiling, so I suggested that someone get a picture of all of us.
On a side note, after I left, I saw a big picture of a skull talking on a cell phone, on a dumpster outside the Puck Building. I was surprised to see it because I'd seen the same picture on the side of McGurk's Suicide Hall, at 295 Bowery near East 1st Street, which was unable to receive landmark status and was demolished in 2005, but around the turn of the twentieth century prided itself as being "the roughest joint in town", a very dangerous dive bar where at least five back-room girls killed themselves by drinking carbolic acid.
I've added a video here that I found on YouTube of a news report of the ceremony, but, no, I wasn't able to spot myself.
