It was started by Italian-American Mayor Lenny Paoletta in 1983 and all these decades later it has served as a tasty-toasty treat Downtown. The Greater Bridgeport St. Patrick’s Day Celebration will take place Friday highlighted by the parade starting noon. Parade route here. Dress warm! Or find a bar/restaurant with a view. Forecast does not look like a day for kilts. Parking meters Downtown will be shut down for the day, according to mayor’s office.
8:00 a.m. Mass at Saint Augustine Cathedral
9:15 a.m. Flag raising at City Hall
10:00 a.m. *Grand Marshals’ Breakfast, Grand Ballroom, Bridgeport Holiday Inn
12:00 p.m. Parade Kick-off with 2018 Grand Marshals, Dave and Anne Marie Curtin
1:30 p.m. *Post Parade Luncheon and Awards Ceremony, Grand Ballroom, Bridgeport Holiday Inn
Saturday, March 17th, in Bridgeport, where the patron saint of Ireland is celebrated by excessive alcohol consumption. Erin go braless…
sorry…under no circumstances am I going to be near those hi-tech meter maids.
a parade during a week day….when kids are at school, genius.
Who is paying for the police coverage and how much is that?
Ron,
I had that conversation with a member of the parade committee the other day. I was told that they pay for the police.
At least this year New Haven Taxpayers are paying Tom McCarthy to march in the parade on a work day..
Lennie – To provide a bit more insight to the history of this parade…Mayor Paoletto thought it would be a good idea for a St. Patrick’s Day parade. However realizing he had no Irish DNA, as an Italian if he ran it, he knew the Parade would end up being routed through the North End, with a reviewing stand at Micalizzi’s, culminating at the North End Little League baseball field…Thus dooming the St. Patrick’s Parade to failure.
With true mayoral wisdom, he tasked his City Clerk Catherine Brannelly with all the grunt work regarding a parade: starting from scratch, building a committee, developing a parade route, enlisting marching units, and even more importantly, generating money to pay for everything.
With the help of a lot of people from the community, the AOH, the Gaelic Club, etc., City Clerk Brannelly and her Parade Committee did a great job creating something from nothing, that remains a great event after 30+ years. (Full disclosure, I am married to her twin Maura and with this posting, I have insured that whatever trouble I get into at the Parade tomorrow will be overlooked.)
Copngrat’s to Mayor Paoletto, Catherine Brannelly and all the Parade Committee volunteers that have built this up and kept it going!
Thank you for the history of the Greater Bridgeport St. Patrick’s Day Celebration.
Thanks, Denis. Your sense of humor is much more precise than your golf game.
Joe Ganim ought to make his way down Fairfield Avenue in Black Rock on Saturday night. I’m positive all the drunken revelers will have a few things to say to our mayor the convicted felon.