Sunset Park gears up for its ninth Puerto Rican Parade and Festival

The first parade, started by El Grito, was in 2015

By Jaime DeJesus

[email protected]

¡Viva Puerto Rico!

Sunset Park’s ninth annual Puerto Rican Parade and Festival will be held on June 8.

The march will begin on Fifth Avenue and 59th Street and will include floats, vintage cars and motorcycles.

The music festival will start at 6:30 p.m. near the entrance to Sunset Park on Fifth Avenue and 43rd Street.

Once again, community group El Grito will host the event.

“Since 2015, the Sunset Park Puerto Rican Parade and Festival has turned Brooklyn’s 5th Avenue into a river of rhythm and color—a living pulse of Bomba y Plena echoing down the streets like ancestral heartbeat,” wrote the parade committee. “Born of a proud activist soul, the celebration honors the resilience of the Puerto Rican diaspora—their stories, their struggles, their unyielding hope—while raising voices for justice both on the island and in Sunset Park itself.”

Nelson Walter Canals Martínez and Aurora Flores Hostos will be padrino and madrina at this year’s parade.

Hostos is an award-winning, published author and historian of Latin music and culture. 

Martinez was a professor and former executive director of the Legal Institute of Puerto Rico and more.

For more information, visit facebook.com/SunsetParkPRparade.