Parade’s On – Snow Will Be Gone
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Long Island longest-running and largest St. Patrick’s Parade kicks off Sunday, March 8 at 2 p.m. This year’s event features 17 pipe bands.
Huntington’s 81st annual St. Patrick’s Parade is on and town officials promise the streets and sidewalks along the parade route will be snow-free for the big day.
That big day is Sunday, March 8 beginning at 2 p.m. when Grand Marshal Fr. Stephen Donnelly will start the march with his signature “big whistle.” Students at St. Patrick’s School in Huntington know that when Fr. Donnelly puts his two fingers two his lips, the whistle that follows means pay attention and get in line. For Sunday’s parade, that line will be a long one. It will include members of the sponsoring Ancient Order of Hibernians, Div. 4, dressed in their traditional, long-tailed morning suits, followed by community groups and fire departments, and pipe band – lots of pipe bands. Seventeen of them, in fact, including New York City’s famed NYPD Emerald Pipe Band, Nassau and Suffolk PDs’ Emerald Pipe Bands, IBEW Local #25 Pipe and Drum Band, and the Hibernian’s home band – the Northport Pipe and Drum. Marching bands from Huntington and Walt Whitman High Schools will also participate, as will fire departments and first responders from throughout the Town of Huntington.
The parade is organized, run and paid for by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, an Irish-American fraternal organization, and is truly grassroots effort. Members solicit donations from area businesses and sponsors’ advertisements appear in a special parade journal which is published in this week’s editions of The Long-Islander and The Record newspapers.
It couldn’t be done with the cooperation of the Town of Huntington. This year they’ll be going above and beyond by hitting the streets Friday and Saturday to fully clear the parade route of accumulated snow.
The parade attracts as many as 10,000 spirited spectators who line the parade route along New York Avenue and Main Street in Huntington, and patronize the village’s many restaurants and pubs. Keeping it all safe is a massive contingent of officer and auxiliary police from SCPD’s Second Precinct.
Rules Of The Road For Parade Day
The Suffolk County Police Department Second Precinct is advising motorists of road closures in Huntington between 12 p.m. and 5 p.m.
The parade will kick off at 2 p.m. and will travel north on New York Avenue from Broadway to Main Street and will then head west on Main Street to St. Patrick’s Church, located at 400 W. Main St.
No parking will be allowed on New York Avenue or Main Street to allow for a clear and safe route. Motorists are advised to use alternate routes such as Pulaski Road for east/west travel and Park Avenue and Woodbury Road for north/south travel.
