I always love to watch  New York City’s second-largest Gay and Lesbian Pride event, the Brooklyn Pride Parade. It starts at Bartel- Pritchard Circle and goes along Prospect Park West from 15th Street to 9th Street and travels up 15th Street to Seventh Avenue, continuing north on Seventh Avenue to Lincoln Place.
It must have started around 9 p.m. I could hear the cheers and yelps from my apartment. We finally got out and the parade was just about over but OSFO and I walked north on Seventh Avenue and caught up with the beginning.
We saw Congressman Antony Weiner at Lincoln Place and I asked him for a quote. "One of the great things about Brooklyn is that it’s diverse. And today is a day that celebrates diversity," he said.
He pointed to Santa Fe Grill and said, that used to be an ice cream parlor. Then he pointed to Olive Vine and said, "And that used to be a bagel shop. I worked in the bagel shop in the morning and the ice cream shop in the afternoon. We didn’t go by our names, we went by ice cream flavors. I was strawberry.”
I asked him when that was. He said in the 1970’s. I asked him when he was born and he said 1965. "You’re younger than me," I told him.
Walking back up Seventh we saw Engarde, the gay and lesbian flag corps. They dance, swing flags and throw them up and down. It’s a great act.
Representatives from Kolot Chayenu marched as did the Park Slope Jewish Center, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the Audrey Lorde Project, and Lesbians Against Facism.
OSFO bought three glow necklaces for five bucks. The parade ended at Lincoln Place but participants and onlookers seemed to head west on Union Street.