MIDTOWN, Manhattan (PIX11) --It is the original St. Patrick's Day Parade and the world's largest.
With that kind of legacy, the onus is on New York City to make each year's parade more memorable than those that preceded it. This year's event did not disappoint.
It was the 262nd running of the parade, and even though one parade goer, Isabella Crianza, has missed about 250 of them, she said that in addition to the tuneful bagpipe bands, brigades of cloggers, as well as banners and flags up and down the Fifth Avenue parade route, one other thing left a strong impression.
"It's certainly the most crowded I've ever seen it," she said.
Organizers said over 2 million people were there.
Mayor Eric Adams commented on the big turnout during a quick stop along the route. He said that so many people feeling that it was safe to attend flew in the face of a perception of danger in the city in the wake of a fatal subway shooting two days before.
"Let's stop this belief that this is a city out of control," he said in the press gaggle along the side of the route, near St. Patrick's Cathedral. "This is the safest big city in America," he added. It is a point he makes in most public gatherings.
The mayor was one of the many elected officials marching. Also traversing the route from 44th Street to 79th Street on Fifth Avenue was Governor Kathy Hochul. She pointed out that she is the first Irish American New York governor in 40 years. By her side was New York Attorney General Letitia James.
James told PIX11 News that everyone is Irish at the St. Patrick's Day Parade.
"Today my name is Letitia Jameson," she joked.
Leading them all was the grand marshal, Maggie Timoney, the first woman CEO of a beer company, Heineken USA.
Like all the VIPs along the route, she stopped in front of the cathedral, where Archbishop Timothy Dolan stood under a canopy, greeting and blessing parade participants.
When she arrived at the cardinal's location, he put his arm around her and joked to the assembled media, "Only in New York does a Dutch brewery sponsor the Irish parade!"
The most important attendees were the many paradegoers from all over the world.
A random sampling of people in the six-deep crowd in about a 15-square-foot area showed visitors from Italy, Brazil and, of course, Ireland.
The route was populated by many spectators from the Emerald Isle, including the Gregory family, the mother of whom described the event as “the biggest and the oldest in the world. To experience it, it is the best,” she said.
Nobody, though, does the New York City’s St. Patrick's Day Parade like locals.
Nicole Castaneda, a first-year student at Fordham University, was with her friends Anna Brown and Caitlin Thomas behind a barricade between 47th and 48th Streets.
The three were screaming with joy at each group that passed by in the hours-long procession.
“I just love parades!” Brown exclaimed.
“It is St. Patrick's Day! This is fun!” her friend Castaneda added. “I love parades.”
Another parade goer, Jim Kain, who said that he comes every year from Central Jersey, sported a glued-on, neon green mustache, a leprechaun hat, and all-green clothing and jewelry.
He said the parade is a gratifying event for him because it unifies many people for joyful reasons.
“For everybody to get together and have a good time,” Kain said, “It works.”
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