Famous Ankles

It looks like it’s going to be a total of five posts for the 2008 Greek Parade on Fifth Avenue to be covered. It’s been a week since it happened, but the new WordPress editor and I don’t get along very well and I probably would have done it in 3 posts normally; but I can’t quite create a “storyline” like I used to. Now, I just put up the pictures and write about them.

Speaking of which, the next picture was the most unusual float in the entire parade. It was a celebration of Greece and a Greek-American boxer: Mighty Mike Arnaoutis. His float was a bit of bragging: that Mike is “The Pride of Greece” and a bit of politics: “Macedonia is Greek”.

Another Bank made an appearance. This time it was “Alma Bank”. From what I understand, it is a brand new institution located in Astoria and Brooklyn. Always remember that Astoria and New York Greeks are tightly intertwined. They may or may not be Greek themselves, but they are marching right amidst their customers.

And the Greeks are very family oriented. Lots and lots of kids in native costume in the parade. I like this picture despite accidentally lopping off the top of the woman’s head.

The next set of marchers and their float was from the Cathedral of Saint Markella in Astoria. The float was pretty colorful.

Kids from St. Markellas Cathedral School.

I really liked this one, although I sympathized with the man-horse. This is from the St. Andrews Greek Orhodox Church in Randolph, New Jersey.

The next float was from the Cyprus Federation of America. You may just catch a glimpse of the politics of this float saying that “37% of Cyprus” is under Turkish occupation since 1974.

The next set of marchers was from the Association of Asgata. I believe that “Asgata” is Cyprus, or at least Cyprus-related.

My notes on the next group calls them the “Greek Orthodox Council”. I don’t know who or where they are from, nor their authority in terms of the Greek Orthodox Church.

Next came a whole bunch of marchers associated with St. Demetrios. This group is from the St. Demetrios Cathedral High School of Astoria.

St. Demetrios High cheerleaders. It’s a parade in America, we gotta have cheerleaders. (Well, we don’t have to, but they always make a parade a little more of a parade.)

I can’t go very long without a picture of costumed kids. It’d be…unGreek.

A continuation of St. Demetrios. I like the sign. I have no idea what it means, but I like the sign.

Some more high schoolers from St. Demetrios. I presume they were too old (and not old enough) to wear costumes, so they wore their school uniforms.

More marchers from St. Demetrios. My pictures are a little out of order here, but I presume it isn’t critical for you to catch the parade’s nature. Me? I blame the WordPress editor despite the fact that it had nothing to do with me getting this out of order.

The Bronx High School of Science’s Hellenic Cultural Society had some representation. Good for them.

Universities were also represented. There was a group from the Intercollegiant Hellenic Society. The schools I caught being represented were Baruch, Hofstra, Montclair, NYU, Seton Hall, and St. Johns. Not a bad representation.

My final picture for today’s post is the Federation of Dodecanese Societies. At first, all I could think of was some sort of multisided object like a dodecahedron, but that’s my foolishness. It turns out that the Dodecanese are a group of about 162 islands in the Aegean Sea. Most are uninhabited…maybe I oughta stake a claim…but I sunburn way too quickly. Okay, you folks go out and grab yourselves an island.

I shouldn’t be too flippant. It turns out that Patmos is one of the Dodecanese. Wow.

It also turns out that a dodecahedron has 12 sides.  There are 12 major islands in the Dodecanese.  Not a real coincidence, but I figured someone would point it out.

-H

This entry was posted on April 13, 2008 at 1:54 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.