Chairman Sean Flanagan announced the Brooklyn Independence Day Parade Committee has selected American Revolutionary reenactors Norman Coben and Mike Grillo as grand marshals for its 118th annual patriotic march, which will take place on Sunday, June 29 at 11:30 a.m. The parade route will again be along Fifth Avenue from 60th Street to 44th Street in Sunset Park.
Coben wears the uniform of a Continental Army soldier and is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution. Grillo, a former Bay Ridge resident and the education director of the Van Cortlandt Museum, which is based in the oldest building in the Bronx, impersonates General George Washinton. Both men have marched in previous Independence Day parades and other regional events at Green-Wood Cemetery, the Remembrance of the Maryland 400 at the Old Stone House, and the Brooklyn Memorial Day Parade, to name a few.
The Brooklyn Independence Parade is hosted by the Long Island Assembly of the Knights of Columbus. Before the parade there will be a Mass at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, followed by a brief ceremony honoring the parade marshals, the Pro Patria Award posthumously to Rev. Ruskin Piedra, and the Father Brogan Community Service Award to Steve Kiernan.
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Did you know Bay Ridge has an official flower? With cherry and apple blossom trees already displaying their beautiful canopies and milder spring days ahead, it would be a good time to consider planting or cultivating Bay Ridge’s official floral emblem, the hydrangea. It was on August 22, 2006 that former Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz signed a proclamation designating it as Bay Ridge’s official flower.
On Nov. 20, 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed a proclamation certifying the rose as the national flower. In 1955, the New York State Legislature passed a bill naming the rose as the state flower. The forsythia became Brooklyn’s celebrated flower by a proclamation signed by Borough President John Cashmore on March 18, 1940.
Prior to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration the rose was also known as the city’s official flower. However, that changed when Bloomberg signed a proclamation on April 20, 2007 giving official status to the daffodil. Since the horrendous attacks on the World Trade Center, the daffodil has become the flower of choice at many 9/11 memorial tributes.
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