Famous Ankles

Here starts my third post on last Sunday’s Greek Parade on Manhattan’s 5th Avenue. There was a pretty large contingent from Marathon Bank. I remember Marathon. However, I don’t know if the bank is named after the battle, the athletic event, or the location.

More Greeks in costume. This was a nice group.

There was a protest by the people of Pontos (or Pontus). It’s now a part of Turkey and is located on the Black Sea.

More protestors. Their sign reads “The 4 genocides by Turks: Armenians, Kurds, Pontians and Cypriots.”

More Pontos protestors. The sign reads “The Greek-speaking people in Pontos have their own language, culture and history of 3000 years! They deserve rights, too!”

The next float was pretty generically named: the Hellenic Communities of Brooklyn and Staten Island. I guess that’s to differentiate themselves from the big Greek community is Astoria (part of Queens).

Just some of my neighbors. The guy at the right was one of a bunch of bluish characters.

The GOYA of Brooklyn. (Greek Orthodox Youth Association)

The Constantine and Helen Society marchers.

A bunch of kids from the Constantine and Helen Cathedral School.

The next group called themselves St. Nicholas at Ground Zero.

A sort of not-necessarily-Greek-specific group: the Park Ridge Marching Band.

Perhaps the strangest named group of the day: Youth of Kimisis Theotokou of Brooklyn. Brooklyn? How many Youth of Kimisis Theotokou are there around? (Probably hundreds, but this was the only one of that group that I saw in the parade.)

The next group of kids was from the Hellenic Classical Charter School. The little girl in the center (the one with the big, big smile) isn’t looking at me, but at the guys whose heads are painted like the Greek flag. C’mon kid, it’s NYC and they’re way too many of those guys wandering the streets for it to be that unusual. Okay, maybe most of them don’t have the Greek flag…

The next group was the Kaloidis Parochial School of Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Church. Their first major task in education is getting kids to learn the name of the school.

Another school group. This time it was the Three Heirarchs Parochial School. They did have their priest with ’em. Maybe I’ve got the name wrong…should it be “patriarchs”?

The below group of hoplites was called “The Greek Warriors”. They did a pretty good little show.

Next was a very long-named float: Holy Trinity St. Nicolas Church of Staten Island.
When I’ve zoomed in on the pictures, they seemed to be saints.

The next float was the Federation of Sterea Hellas. Well, “Hellas” is Greece/Greek. Beyond that…well, it’s a Federation that quotes their version of Nathan Hale, I guess. “Freedom or Death” is one heck of a slogan.

The last picture in today’s post is the St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church of Albany’s float. I always get a kick out of the use of their native language in their floats. Other than their identity and a slogan about believing in their youth, they aren’t making any concessions to non-Greeks. I actually like that.

These posts just go on and on, don’t they?  What can I say?  I enjoyed the parade and don’t want to forget it.  More to come.

-H

This entry was posted on April 12, 2008 at 2:36 pm and is filed under Events, Manhattan, Parades. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.