LET’S HAVE A PARADE

Can there ever be a happier time than coming to a parade? Perhaps it may be actually being in a parade! As many of us know, a parade is a time of celebration. It can be a time to welcome some event with joy and it can be a time to recognize a group of people who performed something wonderful.

For the people of New York City, it is the recognition of the importance of some group that has made the City a great place to live in. And it can offer the public a chance to see some special people, like athletics or military heroes, as they ride in floats down Fifth Avenue that have been approved for parades by the New York City Police Department. Once an approval is granted, the word is sent out throughout the City of New York that an importance parade will be coming at a select date and with an approved route.

I have my own funny story to tell. I am a newspapers photographer/reporter for a South Shore Newspapers. With my authorized NYPD Press Pass I can walk in the street with the parade members and I can photograph parade members and spectators on any part of the parade route. To do it even once is a thrill. And to gain coverage for our newspapers’ readers, can be a fantastic and exciting view of a major parade in the City.

The funniest story I have to offer is the time I photographed the Puerto Rican American Parade in the City. At the time I was to photograph the parade I was working in my day job with a work associate who was Puerto Rican and who was bringing her entire family to the parade. She asked if I could give her some extra photographs of my work. I said I would and she was very pleased.

On the day of the parade I was ushered to a section of the parade by the NYPD. Due to some crowd confusion and my own timidity I was placed within the Parade’s Line of March within the first three groups starting the parade. At first it was fun. I could get great photographs of the parade leadership at the front of the parade and I could get the early cheering crowd on both sides of the street. Within the first five streets I got my photographs for my newspapers’ assignment. After that I could see the repetition of the reaction of the crowds and the parade participants with their smiles and waves to the crowd.

Then it happened. I saw my co-worker and her family on one side of the parade viewing area and I waved to them. My co-worker started to laugh and said she thought I was going to photograph the parade and NOT be in the parade. I said I thought so too. We both laughed and I told her I got caught up walking with the marchers when they started the parade.

Then I asked her to gather her family together by the side of the parade viewing area and I took a family portrait of them (in one shot!) Once I got home I reviewed my photographs for my newspaper assignment and I found the family portrait of my co-worker and her family. It was a really good photograph because it showed how happy they are as a family and it showed their proud daughter smiling to be at the parade. Three people at the Puerto Rican Parade who were proud to be there AND flattered to have their family portrait taken by me!

Weeks later I brought two coffee mugs to work with the family portrait on each mug now with a Sepia toning to make them look even more unique and special. My co-worker cried when she saw them. We hugged and she said she will always remember that year’s Puerto Rican Parade because her co-worker (me) demonstrated his kindness and great honor to her family by creating coffee mugs with her family portrait for her and her husband and their daughter.

We stay in touch off and on for the years that passed after that one parade day. She now lives with her father in his home in Puerto Rico and she reminds me at times that between talking and drinking coffee in the morning with her husband she will look at her coffee mug and smile and cry because the photograph of her family makes her very happy. And I was told that after a while, her husband will squeeze her hand and look at his own mug and say, “What a great memory of our life in New York we have that we can treasure forever!”

Joseph F. Abate is a newspapers journalist and photographer. Over the past fifteen years he has offered reviews and photographs of the events that impact the residents on the South Shore of Long Island. He tries to document the world from the perspective of individuals impacted by evens and the environment around them. Joseph F. Abate has Master degrees from both Loyola University and Johns Hopkins University.