Happy Birthday, America! Independence Day Parade Wows Lower Manhattan
Now a decade old, this little-known revival of a once-renowned event packed a big wallop, marching from Castle Clinton to Fraunces Tavern— this year with Marquis de Lafayette in tow!
Hundreds of ardent patriots gathered in Battery Park on the morning of July 4 to participate in the Lower Manhattan Historical Association’s 10th annual Independence Day Parade, while thousands more watched the parade as it snaked its way through some of downtown’s most historic streets.
Among those present was the day’s undoubted star, an enthused and talented Marquis de Lafayette reenactor, here to celebrate the bicentennial of the French general’s farewell tour of America. Because his tour began in August 1824 and continued to September 1825, this year’s parade was deemed the appropriate time for the American Friends of Lafayette organization to bring the general back to life.
Weather for the event, for which people began gathering in Castle Clinton around 9am, was in the sunny 70s—warm but not hot and humid like last year’s event, which left the Excelsior Marching Band especially sweat-soaked. Another difference was the parade route. Because the July 4 fireworks show was being set up in the lower East River, instead of going to Pier 16 near South Street Seaport the parade would finish at Fraunces Tavern.
Ambling through and around Battery Park before the day’s scheduled flag-raising with the Veteran Corps of Artillery inside Castle Clinton was disconcerting.
Everything that is known to be wrong with the area was on full display: aggressive tourist ticket scammers and counterfeit Apple headphone vendors, along with more peaceful but still illicit souvenir and mango purveyors, the latter of whom set up carts amid the solemn gray monuments of the East Coast Memorial.
What a happy contrast the inside of Castle Clinton proved to be.
Here, National Park rangers and event organizers were fully in control and spirits were strongly lifted by the collective enthusiasm of the diverse Americans gathered here that morning, black and white, Chinese, Hispanic, Irish, and many others, all happily roused by the Vernon NJ Factor Marching Band and dance line.
After the flag-raising, the Lafayette reenactor delivered five minutes of powerful, rousing oratory. He was followed by the Lower Manhattan Historical Association’s co-founder and chair, James S. Kaplan, and its president, Ambrose M. Richardson III.
Although the parade is non-political, Kaplan made a subtle point by noting that while the parade would pass both 40 Wall St., aka the Trump Building, and another owned by President Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, he wished that Trump’s attitude toward immigration were a bit different.
Like last year, the grand marshal for this year’s event was New York State Assembly Assistant Majority Leader, Charles D. Fall. Representing the 61st Assembly District—which includes Lower Manhattan, the North Shore of Staten Island, and parts of Brooklyn—Small, the son of immigrants from Guinea, in West Africa, is both the first Muslim and the first African-American elected from Staten Island.
Small’s background also served as reminder that July 4, 1829 was also Emancipation Day in New York state—the day slavery ended—and that too is cause for celebration.
Shadowing Small today was his chief of staff, Fitim Shabani, who, as a parade-route photographer exhibited such quickness and grace in walking backward that, if politics doesn’t work out, he surely has a promising future in journalism.
Unlike nearly all other Manhattan parades, there is no preset route control. While two plainclothes Patrol Borough Manhattan South (PBMS) cops in a black unmarked car were present at the parade’s start and finish, the line of march, including all street crossings and tourist spots, was cleared in real time by four polite yet firm, blue-helmeted motorcycle cops from PBMS.
In this foursome, the notably fit, muscular and affable Officer Rivera stood out.
Following behind the cops were Grand Marshal Fall, who carried an American flag; the NYPD Emerald Society bagpipers; and representatives of various Revolutionary War groups, including the Friends of Lafayette and the Colonial Dames of America. Also present was the Chinatown-based American Legion Lt. B. R. Kimlau Chinese Memorial Post 1291 as was a small phalanx of red-T-shirt-wearing women and men from the Chinese-American Planning Council.
Amusingly, the only apparent confusion along the parade route, which had successfully navigated busy Broad and Wall streets, came near the end.
With the police rolling ahead to Fraunces Tavern, somehow the Grand Marshal Small squad and Emerald Society bagpipers did an extra loop around the perimeter of 85 Broad St., the former Morgan Stanley headquarters building, turning right at Coentes Alley, crossing Stone Street and swinging left at William Street and finally Broad Street again—where the rest of the parade was now waiting.
How did it happen? Who knows, despite the exhortation of Lafayette that “We must never forget how that independence was achieved!”
Among those present was the day’s undoubted star, an enthused and talented Marquis de Lafayette reenactor, here to celebrate the bicentennial of the French general’s farewell tour of America.