Extravagant costumes, loud music, bawdy dancing, and great food help make West Indian American Day Carnival one of the best parades of the year (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Eastern Pkwy. from Rochester Ave. to Grand Army Plaza
Monday, September 3, free, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
718-467-1797
www.wiadca.com
2011 parade slideshow
Every Labor Day, millions of people line Eastern Parkway, celebrating the city’s best annual parade, the West Indian American Day Carnival, waving flags from such nations as Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, the Cayman Islands, Antigua, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Aruba, Curaçao, and many more. The festivities begin at 2:00 am with the traditional J’Ouvert Morning, a precarnival procession featuring steel drums and percussion and fabulous, inexpensive masquerade costumes, marching from Grand Army Plaza to Flatbush Ave. and on to Empire Blvd., then to Nostrand Ave. and Linden Blvd. The Parade of Bands begins around 11:00 am, as truckloads of blasting Caribbean music and groups of ornately dressed dancers, costume bands, masqueraders, moko jumbies, and thousands of others bump and grind their way down Eastern Parkway to Grand Army Plaza, participating in one last farewell to the flesh prior to Lent. Don’t eat before you go; the great homemade food includes ackee and codfish, oxtail stew, breadfruit, macaroni pie, curried goat, jerk chicken, fishcakes, rice and peas, and red velvet cake. The farther east you venture, the more closed in it gets; by the time you get near Crown Heights, it could take you half an hour just to cross the street (although the police this year are opening more areas to cross to reduce the outrageous congestion), so take it easy and settle in for a fun, colorful day where you need not hurry. This year’s theme is “Unity, History, and Culture . . . New Leadership, New Vision, and New Energy.”