Mayor Zohran Mamdani rode through Brooklyn on a parade float Monday while Gov. Kathy Hochul walked the route at the famously spirited West Indian Day Parade, where some attendees said an expanded security presence took some of the edge off the celebration.
Both elected officials, each wearing an “Honorary Grand Marshal” sash, were greeted by loud cheers as they moved through Crown Heights for the 59th annual festival, which went on just hours after four people were stabbed along the parade route.
Mamdani waved and blew kisses from atop his float, occasionally stepping down to greet supporters and shake hands with people lining the streets.
“We know today is the day that our entire city looks forward to,” Mamdani said earlier at a pre-parade breakfast.
He described the event as more than a celebration of freedom and New York City, calling it a tribute to the Caribbean diaspora and its deep influence on the city’s identity. “A diaspora that has given so much to this place that we call home,” he said, “a diaspora that has the roots of so many New Yorkers.”
Hochul, meanwhile, marched along the route carrying a banner with her name displayed across it.
The governor was joined by several prominent figures, including Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark, former City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton.
Hochul also pledged support for New York’s “vibrant” Caribbean communities, saying she would defend them against what she characterized as “ICE’s over-encroachment.”
“I was just in Little Caribbean neighborhood a couple of weeks, and that has had a real suppressing effect on the businesses, the churches,” she said of the Trump administration’s anti-illegal-immigration push.
“People are afraid to come out, to go to school, and this is New York. We are better than that,” Hochul said.
The politicians at the parade were separated from the crowds by two rows of metal barriers and a thick patrol of law enforcement, which was beefed up in anticipation of the violence that explodes at the annual celebration.
But partiers whined that the extra security made it “difficult for us to enjoy ourselves.”
“I’m too far back. I used to interact with the people in costumes, I took pictures with them. You can’t do that now. They are too far away,” said Kissanka Tara, 40, a home-school mom who has been coming to the parade since moving to the US 26 years ago.
“I’m seeing less people, less vendors, less bands, less costumes. It’s not like it used to be,” she said.
“The rules, too many changes. The cops are too strict,” said Tara, who was carrying Trinidadian and St. Lucian flags.
“My honest opinion is it drives people away. This is no fun.”
The double layer of barricades, which is new for this year’s parade, was the source of most revelers’ ire.
At one point, Mamdani had to stretch himself across the barriers and the large gap between them to shake hands with a visitor watching the parade.
“It kills the spirit. It’s no fun. It looks like jail,” griped Alex G., 23.
The barricades were doing little to secure the crowds, with several people jumping over the hurdles to get closer to the parade route.
But reveler Marcella Robinson said the strict rules were successfully keeping the worst of the troublemakers at bay.
“I love it,” Robinson, 64, said of the parade. “The vibes, the crowd, everybody dancing and moving to the music — young and old.
“They will still be drinking and playing music even when the parade is over. How can you stop a big party like this?” Robinson said.
At least four people were stabbed in Crown Heights on Monday morning, just blocks from the pre-dawn J’Ouvert Festival that precedes the parade kick-off.
No arrests have been made.
Last year, six people were shot along the parade route.
Tisch warned last week that the 59th annual parade would shut down early in an effort to avoid the violence.
She would not say how many extra cops she put on the beat but said the number would be increased from last year and would be in the “thousands.”
“This is one of our department’s largest deployments of the year at this time,” Tisch said Friday.
Eight teams of NYC Crisis Management System staff members and community volunteers were also deployed along the route, along with mobile trauma units.
