Top Pics from NY Labor Day Parade
Courtesy of The Brownstoner
Originally published on Sept 3, 2019
Photo credit: @kevrosencrantz
Rain may have descended onto Eastern Parkway occasionally but the display of brilliant costumes and the joyful revelry of dancers continued at the annual West Indian Day Parade on Monday. While the weather appears to have kept the crowd estimates down a bit from previous years, umbrella-wielding spectators lined the Crown Heights parade route, from Schenectady Avenue to Grand Army Plaza.
The parade tradition started as the Trinidad Carnival Pageant in 1947 in Harlem and moved to Brooklyn in 1969, a few years after New York City revoked the parade permit in Manhattan. Crown Heights has been a center of Caribbean culture in the city since the 1930s, and with the parade move to Eastern Parkway, the festivities expanded to include foods and traditions from other Caribbean islands.
