Tony’s Pizzeria manager Salvatore Polizzi says, this year, the Puerto Rico Day parade is returning. A local street event whose history stretches almost as deep into Bushwick’s past as Tony’s has been around (at this point, well-over fifty years), the event resurfaced back in 2019 as an effort to gin up support for local businesses.
“This year, we are honoring both Wyckoff Hospital and Woodhull Hospital for their efforts in battling [the] COVID-19 pandemic,” Polizzi said about this year’s festivities.
A moment of silence will be observed in their honor on Sunday around 2:45 at Tony’s, where the parade itself will properly kick off at 3, consisting of a mix of marchers, vehicles and motorcycles, according to Polizzi. He adds that the event will also include a DJ booth and “certain headliners but I can’t go into those details at the moment.”
Last year, the outdoor parade had been canceled and went virtual (Manhattan’s corresponding parade, however, will remain virtual this year) but Polizzi says that as far as he knows, he’s the only one getting a parade back up and running in the city.
“I believe this is the only official PR Parade going on this year in NY,” he says.
If Polizzi does pull through, it would only be the second time he’s helmed a return of the local cultural instruction, which had lain dormant for much of the past two decades before Polizzi secured the support of Assemblywoman Maritza Davila’s office and the Magnifico Youth Sports Association in order to pull it off back in 2019. “Every block, every turn, the feeling in the air was unity and diversity,” Erik Kantar wrote for us at the time.
The 3rd Annual Bushwick Puerto Rican Day Parade takes place on June 13, 3pm and will kick off at 443 Knickerbocker Avenue.
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Cover image courtesy of @miguelluciano_ny
Great piece, thank you for spotlighting this cultural event that honors Bushwick’s history and supports local businesses. Tony’s on Greene is certainly among those making this event a reality but we are not alone in this effort. We have an incredible Board of Community groups and advocates and we wouldn’t have been able to pull this off without all of their efforts combined including our Board’s partnership with our 83 Precinct. This year we celebrate with ‘health’ safety at the forefront of our thoughts given the COVID-19 Pandemic and we honor those at Wyckoff and Woodhull Hospitals who continue the fight this horrific battle. We ask that anyone in attendance that is not vaccinated wear masks where appropriate and socially distance.
We’ll have an amazing time this weekend… and everyone should try the Coquito Gelato created at Tony’s with this celebration in mind. Enjoy the festivities. Salvatore @ Tony’s Pizzeria and Restaurant
Thank you for this article. I wouldn’t have known.