The New York Caribbean Carnival Parade got underway in Brooklyn on Monday celebrating the city’s diversity, honoring this event’s colorful history — and breaking news of a significant investment in the community’s future in the form of a multimillion-dollar community center.
“I love Jamaican costumes and everybody getting together with no fussing or fighting,” said parade-goer Robert Watson. The 44-year-old East New York native now lives in Alabama, but drove 18 hours to enjoy Monday’s festivities. His mother is from Jamaica.
“I look forward to the exotic costumes…plus the food,” he said. “You can’t skip the food.”
Kimberly Clarke, 32, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, attended the parade with her 6-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter.
“It’s part of our culture,” she said. “This is how we grew up.”
Clarke and her kids enjoyed the costumes and food as well. Her favorite dishes are the stew chicken and “macaroni pie,” which is baked mac and cheese.
Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio attended the carnival, too, with Cuomo using the event to honor his former aide Carey Gabay, who was shot dead at age 43 by a stray bullet during J’Ouvert, the pre-dawn street festivities that traditionally precede the parade.
Cuomo announced the state planned to invest $15 million to turn the Bedford Union Armory into a community center named after Gabay. The 60,000 square foot Crown Heights facility, on Bedford Ave. and President St., will provide social services, youth mentoring programs and health care to the community, the governor said.
“Carey Gabay was a model. He grew up in public housing, he went to Harvard from public housing, he was working in public service and he lost his life needlessly. And we have to learn the lesson that the young people out here need alternatives to the street; that we have to provide more training, more recreation, more jobs because too many people have lost their lives,” Cuomo said.
Violence has been an ongoing problem during J’Ouvert and the Carnival Parade, which combined is arguably the city’s largest cultural celebration. More than 1 million people gather along Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights for the annual parade honoring Caribbean culture, according to city officials.
In 2016, a year after Gabay was killed in a gang-related crossfire, two men were fatally shot. Police have worked with organizers to try to curb violence in recent years, including moving the start time of J’Ouvert from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. so that festivities start near daybreak.
No major incidents were reported at Monday’s celebration. A 26-year-old man was shot in the back on Nostrand Ave., several blocks from the parade route at 7:30 a.m. Monday, and was hospitalized in stable condition. But police said the shooting was not related to the festivities.
Cuomo also declared Monday as Bill Howard Day in honor of the West Indian American Day Carnival Association president who died last month at 75.
Mayor de Blasio earlier spoke to revelers at the Lincoln Terrace Park tennis courts, where the parade kicked off.
“Today we march out of pride for the community we come from,” the mayor said. “We march out of pride for this great city. We march to send a message to Washington that we are a city proud of all the people who make up New York City.”
The crowd cheered its support.
“We are proud to be a great city of immigrants, aren’t we?” he asked. “We’re not weaker because of immigration, we’re stronger because of immigration.”
First Lady Chirlane McCray and Brooklyn civil rights attorney Sandy Rubenstein served as grand marshals for the parade.
