An Aussie in New York: St Patrick's Day

As you can imagine St Patrick's day in NYC would be a pretty big day to party and celebrate! And because it was on a Saturday this year, everyone was getting into it. Regardless of what day it falls on, a march is held going down 5th Avenue from 46th to around 86th st. Over 150,000 people walk in the parade, it's televised and it starts at 11am and does not finish until between 4-5pm. How crazy is that!

American's love doing up their house/apartment to celebrate a holiday event. So I decided to decorate the apartment with Shamrock Balloons and other fun Irish things. There is a great store 15 blocks from our place called Party City and it has everything you could ever imagine (and then some) for celebrating an event. They had some great Irish stuff.

Me, on the way to the St Patrick's Day parade

Bryan - on his way to the parade

After doing some research on the event, they said that if you get down passed 66th street you will be able to get up close to the parade. One thing that is different between the NYC parade and the Sydney parade is that there are no floats - it's all people marching, AND it is a competition, a marching competition.

We decided to take the advice about getting passed 66th street and headed for the 70's. We rode the subway and with each stop, more and more people got on wearing green. The atmosphere in the subway car was jolly and fun.

waiting for the train.

We found a great spot between 79th and 80th street, however we were told that due to budget cut back they were only going to 79th street, so we re-positioned ourselves on the corner of 79th street.

The start of the parade.

A School Band

A piper band

Some military personnel

Another High School (Cathedral High School) band - This was an All Girls marching band

Members of the NYC Police walking in the parade.

If you look closely in this picture you will see men in the "morning suits" with top hats and tails a traditional way of dressing in America. If you look back at when JFK was sworn into office you will see that for formal occasions Americans used to wear top had and tails.

The parade was a lot of fun we only stayed for about an hour and then headed down to the Financial District where a whole group of English and Irish Taverns had closed off a lane way and celebrations were going on there. Along the way we saw street vendors selling fun Irish party trinkets to help you get into the party mood.