Ruth Fremson/The New York Times Students at the Marymount School caught a glimpse of the parade from a window facing Fifth Avenue. 
More photos »For a French restaurant with a fairly patrician customer base, Demarchelier, on East 86th Street at Madison Avenue, saw a fair amount of trade on Wednesday from the green T-shirt crowd. In the bar area, Irish music blared and plastic foam cups of beer were raised.
Next year, things could be different.
Demarchelier is a traditional first stop at the end of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which runs up Fifth Avenue from 44th Street to 86th Street. But last month, the Police Department declared that starting April 1, parades in the city must reduce the distances they cover by 25 percent, and to not exceed five hours.
Since a staple of the St. Patrick’s parade is passing the namesake cathedral on 50th Street, organizers are likely to trim the route at the north end rather than the south, moving the finish area to somewhere between 72nd and 79th Streets.
Some people on the Upper East Side would not have a problem with the change. “We do have some residents who consider the parade a burden, and they’ll be happy it will no longer come up this far,” said Dave Borg, a doorman at an apartment building on Fifth Avenue near 86th Street, though he added, “I’ve been working here 21 years and I’ve never seen a problem or an incident.”
The managers of Demarchelier, however, are not looking forward to the shorter parade. “We make a lot of money on St. Patrick’s Day,” said the manager, Philippe Courtais, who prepared for the day by stocking up on beer and Jameson’s Irish Whiskey.
“These are people who would never come here, but they come once a year after the St. Patrick’s Day Parade,” he said. “And if they shorten the parade, we lose all these customers.” (As Mr. Courtais spoke, an older woman pushed her way out and said to him, “I’ll never come back on this day again.”)
Moving east with the river of green on 86th Street, the crowd sought the nearest bar, which brought the party to Second Avenue and welcoming saloons like Tin Lizzie’s, Molly Pitchers, Mustang, Swig, Dorrian’s, Brady’s and on and on down the avenue.
Some of these establishments’ proprietors complained that moving the finishing point to the south would siphon off such walk-in customers.
“These people all make the right at 86th Street and come here, but they’re not going to make the 10-block walk up here if the parade gets shortened,” said Mick McCullagh, the owner of Molly Pitchers.
The police, who are in charge of issuing parade permits, said that scaling back parades would trim department costs by $3.1 million and help avoid cuts in service.
The new parade regulations did not affect this year’s St. Patrick’s parade, which had a particularly eminent grand marshal: Raymond W. Kelly, the police commissioner.
Back at the parade finish area, burly bagpipers gathered, looking slightly incongruous outside the sleek swirl of the Guggenheim Museum.
“I think the city should reconsider the decision to cut down the parade,” said a ruddy gentleman decked out in a black suit and top hat and leaning on a blackthorn stick, a sheaf of live shamrocks pinned to his lapel. This opinionated chap was Tom Kennedy, who hails from the town of Camp in the west of County Kerry and now heads the Kerryman Patriotic and Benevolent Association of New York.
“This is the greatest parade in the world,” said Mr. Kennedy, 57. “To reduce it just to save a few dollars, it’s just not right.”
9 Comments
Excuse me.
— Perley J. ThibodeauIsn’t that the town of Campbell in the West of Kerry County Ireland?
The north downtown entrance to the Lexington Avenue and 86th subway was closed today and I was forced to take the uptown train to 96th Street, cross over and then ride down to 14th Street to Beth Israel Hospital for a cardiology clinic appointment.
The downtown train stopped at 86th Street and people got on just the same because the lower side of the street’s entrances were opened.
It was supposed to be to prevent jammed subway platforms, I was officially told.
MAYOR BLOOMBERG: CAN YOU REPLACE THE ENTIRE 19TH PRECINCT POLICE FORCE STARTING AT THE SEGEANTS AND WORKING YOUR WAY UP?
You’ll know who they are by all of their Irish last names!
I made a mistake at 96th Street and took the local instead of the express and that made me a half hour late for the appointment.
I was told the doctor couldn’t see me but, when my Irish Eyes Stopped Smiling and flashed Blue/Green I was told to sign in.
The new doctor, with an Irish last name kept coming out and talking to other patients until I informed her that I had a 3:45 appointment in Dermatology.
She informed me that it was because I was late.
Well, my Irish temper flashed then, and my loudest Irish voice informed her that she didn’t wait on me even when I was on time.
She took me into her office saying I must have been delayed by the parade, which I agreed was a fact.
I won’t tell you the prognosis, just suffice it to say that no Irishman should ever inconvenience another Irishman if they can help it!
The City would welcome parades that pay for the police and sanitation services for the day and not reduce the length or time.
So parades just have to come up with the $$$s
— warrenIn these days of Hi Def TV, the internet, iPhones and instant communication these ethnic parades are a sorry anachronism that serve no purpose, except possibly as an excuse for people to take a day off of work and drink themselves silly. Maybe in the 1800’s and early 1900’s they had some meaning to new immigrant groups, but that is not the case now.
These parades have become like the hundreds of out-of-control street fairs in this city: commercialized, embarasssing, shabby, and utterly indistinguishable from one another.
— AaronConsidering the NYC multibillion dollar budget, spoiling parades for the saving of three million is pointless and oppressive. It costs three times as long and costs three times as much to do road work in the city as anywhere else in the country, public employees get huge pensions after retiring early, and all kinds of waste and inefficiency abound. With the highest taxes in the country, miserable weather, our disgusting subways and outrageous parking fines this is just another slap in the face of overburdened city residents. I am sure there are plenty of areas to make far greater savings that do not reduce the pleasure of so many people. (No I am not Irish, but Jewish) I do enjoy this ancient holiday which, in fact, probably traces its roots to the Romans who had a grand calibration of the god wine on March 17. With the fall of the Western Empire, many Celtic Romans took refuge in Hibernia which became a great center of scholarship and learning during the Dark Ages in mainland Europe. They probably brought their traditions along. Leave this great end of winter party alone.
— Andrew PopperBesides;
— Perley J. ThibodeauWith all that is coming out about the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church at this time, the Episcopalians may well be sponsoring next year’s march!
As they say, “They’ll always be an England!”
Aaron, in an age of internet and iPhones in which personal interactions are shallow and sterile, I think a parade that brings people together for a little sunshine and community is the essential. Why are you so willing to throw tradition and human relations away all for an electronic pacifier?
I also suggest that you put down your pacifier and read some history.
These parades have always had different meanings for different people at different points in time. Sometimes they’ve been highly political. At other times they’ve been defensive, a show of Irish middle-class propriety at the expense of working-class Irish interests. At other times they shed light on how much control the Catholic Church had over Irish-American life. During World War I they served as a means for rival Irish nationalists to take their disagreements about Irish governance to the streets of New York.
Now, the New York parade is not very different from parades in Belfast or Dublin, indicating that it represents common notions of Irish identity on both sides of the pond. We in Europe and the US live in a highly commercialized world with less and less commitment to traditional religious practice. The parades in Ireland and the US speak to that change in Irish identity in a transatlantic context.
Sorry you don’t like it. Maybe you can look into your iPhone and find something more interesting or more dynamic, but I doubt it.
— Karan#2 Warren is exactly right! Let these parades pay for the cost, not the suffering UES residents whose day and night is ruined by every one of these nightmare parades that end on E. 86th St. Let some other street “enjoy” the so-called profit, which costs every resident the right to a decent day and the peaceful enjoyment of their homes.
And, to #4, Andrew Popper, since in your life $3 million is a piddling trifle, why don’t you just donate it? Problem solved by someone to whom that is nothing.
— racI can do just fine without the parade, I’m American, not Irish American.
— AuntBarbI don’t buy the argument that shortening the parade would negatively affect local businesses. Anyone who’s been to a parade in the past five years knows that the police corral off the streets and sidewalks so tightly that no one can get in or out of any business during the parade, unless their holding pen happens to be located directly in front of it. The sooner the parade ends, the sooner parade-goers start hitting the pubs.
And of course, this says nothing for the individual doctors offices who may not be able to see any patients the whole day because no one can make it through the barracades.
— Serendipitous