P

arades and Parades in NYC

 

October 10, 20, November 11, 2002


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Gerry is a sucker for parades. And New York has plenty of them. This time we started out with the Columbus Day parade (really the Ethnic Italian parade), then had the Veterans day parade (skipped by Jan), and, just before our departure, 1/3 of Macy's Thanksgiving day parade.


Columbus Day Parade

Monday October 14 officially celebrated Columbus Day, which until almost all American holidays were moved to Mondays was on October 12, the anniversary of Cristopher Columbus’s first landing in the New World. It should more properly be called “Italian-American Day” because the Italians and their ethnic supporters have a parade that day. We went and got to see a replica of the Niña, one of Columbus’s ships. It seemed that half of the marchers were either from the NY Fire Department or Police Department. Another major contigent represented various Italian town councils, most of which had names mysterious to us.

We shared the day with Sylvia Kuzmak, a friend from our AT&T days. She still works at AT&T but as an IBM employee; in early 2002 AT&T outsourced its computer operations and much software development to IBM. It was Sylvia who made us aware of the large episcopal church on 5th Ave, St. Thomas's. We would have visited that day, but it was all locked up. Later, however, we did manage a visit.

After the parade we took a nice walk with her in Central Park. That was our first visit there since we arrived here. The parade and park were all the better for three days of rain having come to an end. On the other hand, we experienced our first truly cold day. A taste of things to come in cold North America. In the evening we ate at a Thai restaurant; our first Thai meal since we left the comfort of our sister-in-law Jhap’s great care.






December 14, 2002