Melissa McIntyre, left, and Emma Pyper, both of Scotland, are ready for the St. Patrick's Day Parade Friday, March 17, 2017, along Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Photo Credit: John Roca
Irish eyes are smiling Friday past a sitting president’s home for the first time in New York history.
The parade — which dates to 1762 — stepped off at 11 a.m. at 44th Street, moving north to 79th Street, where it is expected to end at 4:30 p.m. New this year: a police-enforced restriction prohibiting cars from crossing Fifth Avenue during breaks in the parade.
Presiding early Friday morning over an annual St. Patrick’s Day breakfast at Gracie Mansion, Mayor Bill de Blasio implicitly criticized Trump’s hard-line immigration policies without mentioning the name of the president, who has signed an executive order reducing or suspending refugees from six Muslim-majority countries.
Standing at a lectern in front of flags of New York City, the United States and Ireland, the Democratic mayor likened the plight of new refugees to that faced by Irish immigrants to America in the 19th and 20th centuries, when they encountered discrimination and bigotry.
“Not a welcome. Not a sense that these were, in effect, refugees fleeing something horrendous, but they were treated like the wretched. And we have to remember that history, and there’s that famous saying, to know history so you don’t repeat it?” de Blasio said before hundreds at the mayoral mansion. “We have to respect each and every new generation that joins us from all over the world.”
De Blasio is expected to march in the parade, as are Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and Ireland Prime Minister Enda Kenny.
Organizers expect about 100,000 marchers and up to 2 million spectators. The Long Island Rail Road is running an additional six westbound trains and 10 eastbound trains. Alcohol is banned on trains, stations and platforms until 5 a.m. Saturday.
At the breakfast, de Blasio praised Kenny, who during a meeting this week with Trump discussed the plight of the estimated 50,000 Irish who are living illegally in the United States.
“I think he did a great service to America by making his comments — by reminding us all that those who come here, for whatever reason and in whatever status, look like the entire world just like the great history of American immigration tells us, and they are human being yearning to breathe free,” de Blasio said of Kenny.
De Blasio had boycotted the parade until last year, when gays marching under their own banner were permitted for the first time under an agreement brokered by the Irish consulate to New York.
Irish eyes are smiling Friday past a sitting president’s home for the first time in New York history.
Unprecedented security measures will guard President Donald Trump’s namesake tower as the St. Patrick’s Day Parade’s traditional route up Fifth Avenue passes the building, between 56th and 57th streets.
Presiding early Friday morning over an annual St. Patrick’s Day breakfast at Gracie Mansion, Mayor Bill de Blasio implicitly criticized Trump’s hard-line immigration policies without mentioning the name of the president, who has signed an executive order reducing or suspending refugees from six Muslim-majority countries.
Standing at a lectern in front of flags of New York City, the United States and Ireland, the Democratic mayor likened the plight of new refugees to that faced by Irish immigrants to America in the 19th and 20th centuries, when they encountered discrimination and bigotry.
“Not a welcome. Not a sense that these were, in effect, refugees fleeing something horrendous, but they were treated like the wretched. And we have to remember that history, and there’s that famous saying, to know history so you don’t repeat it?” de Blasio said before hundreds at the mayoral mansion. “We have to respect each and every new generation that joins us from all over the world.”
De Blasio is expected to march in the parade, as are Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and Ireland Prime Minister Enda Kenny.
Organizers expect about 100,000 marchers and up to 2 million spectators. The Long Island Rail Road is running an additional six westbound trains and 10 eastbound trains. Alcohol is banned on trains, stations and platforms until 5 a.m. Saturday.
At the breakfast, de Blasio praised Kenny, who during a meeting this week with Trump discussed the plight of the estimated 50,000 Irish who are living illegally in the United States.
De Blasio had boycotted the parade until last year, when gays marching under their own banner were permitted for the first time under an agreement brokered by the Irish consulate to New York.
