Well, I'll probably have to, as my daughter is in it, but I have to figure out how I'm going to get to it, considering I don't get out of work until 4PM on Fridays and I work in Albany. Going to be interesting. I again have to find someone else to get my daughter there as I'm sure I won't have the time.
I attend "Holiday Parades" because I do "Holiday shopping" and "Holiday consuming"---just like the Feds and the stock market like us to do and so do the sweat shops in 3rd world countries, of whose items we like to "consume holiday-like".....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
I do CHRISTMAS shopping and therefore have no need for a HOLIDAY parade! In my home, CHRIST is still in Christmas!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Holiday parade limits Schenectady traffic First published: Friday, November 16, 2007
SCHENECTADY -- Police warn that there will be significant traffic restrictions downtown due to the annual Gazette Holiday Parade on Saturday.
The parade is scheduled to start at 5 p.m. from the intersection of State Street and Liberty Street and will conclude at approximately 8 p.m. near the Zone 5 Law Enforcement Academy on Erie Boulevard.
Exits 4A and 4B of Interstate 890 will be closed starting at 4 p.m.
The following streets will also be closed:
State Street from Church Street to Nott Terrace.
Erie Boulevard from Union Street to I-890.
Lafayette Street from Union to State.
Broadway from Hamilton to Liberty streets.
Franklin Street from Nott Terrace to Jay Street.
Liberty Street from Nott Terrace to Clinton Street.
Edison Avenue from Broadway to Erie Boulevard.
Clinton Street from Smith Street to State Street.
Temporary parking restrictions will also be in effect on some downtown streets. Signs will be posted warning "No Parking Tow Away Zone" from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. Motorists will be ticketed if they park in the forbidden areas.
Changing parade to a Saturday night will be inconvenient to churches
As members of St. John the Baptist Church on Franklin Street in downtown Schenectady, we would like to voice our distress over the planning of Schenectady’s annual Christmas parade. This event has always been held on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, when people are out and about and ready for some floats, marching bands and, of course, Santa Claus. This year the parade was changed to Nov. 17, so that it does not clash with doings at Proctors. This sounds like a good game plan, except it is not. Did any of the planners think about the places of worship in the vicinity of the parade and the havoc caused by the huge amount of people who will be downtown? Because of the lack of planning, our church has had to cancel our regular Saturday Vigil Mass, which is held at 4:30 p.m. This is the Mass that is videotaped and shown on Sunday and Monday for the homebound. There will be thousands of cars and people in our area, along with street closings, so it is impossible for us to have our regular 4:30 p.m. liturgy on Saturday evening. Our church has a very small parking lot that can accommodate around 10 cars. We depend on the use of the city parking lot next door and across the street. We also have many elderly congregants who need to be dropped off directly at the door or at our side entrance, which has a ramp. It’s really too bad that commercialization always seems to come before anything else. Please, parade organizers, give a thought to those of us who use downtown on Saturday and Sunday when putting together next year’s event. MAUREEN AND BOB BURGER Schenectady
I am writing to express my disappointment with the moving of the Christmas Parade, typically held the Friday after Thanksgiving, to the Saturday before Thanksgiving (tonight). My father — one of eight children — was brought up on State Street. My Nana continues to live there today, though her family has now grown to include 25 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Every year, the entire family and all our friends have congregated at Nana’s to eat Thanksgiving leftovers, then bundle up to watch the Christmas Parade. We dance to the marching bands and wave to people on floats, while waiting anxiously for the end, when Santa and his reindeer go by. After the parade, we walk back to Nana’s to defrost, eat pie and drink hot chocolate. It is a wonderful tradition that I have not missed once in all my 27 years. That is, not until this year. All of my family and friends who are traveling from other areas are not arriving until mid-week, and it just wouldn’t be the same without them. I am sure that my family is not the only family to share in the tradition of the Christmas Parade, and I hope that others will join me in asking the city to restore our tradition and return the parade to its rightful day in the years to come. JENNIFER PURCELL Schenectady
SCHENECTADY Stratton to lead today’s holiday parade in his dad’s old car BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter
Leading the Gazette Holiday Parade today will be a car that Mayor Brian U. Stratton thought he’d never see again. It’s a 1969 yellow Volkswagen convertible, the fi rst convertible his father ever bought. Before Stratton was old enough to drive, he loved the car so much that he spent hours waxing and washing it. “I just thought it was cool,” Stratton said of the classic “Bug.” Waxing the car was about as close as he could get to driving it: his father, Rep. Samuel S. Stratton, only rarely allowed his children to drive the car. In fact, one of the few times Stratton ever got behind the wheel was when health forced his father to give up the driver’s seat. “We were going to get the paper in the village — this was when we were living in Bethesda, Md. — and he became very ill,” Stratton related. “Finally he said I’d better drive us home.” His father had emergency gall bladder surgery that afternoon. Stratton bid goodbye to the car several years later, when his father traded it in. That was the last he saw of it. So he was quite surprised when he learned that a group of children from Northeast Parent & Child Society had found the car in a muddy field and completely restored it. They even rebuilt the engine. “They found my father’s name and his distinctive handwriting in the owner’s manual,” Stratton said, adding that he and all of his siblings were delighted by the discovery. “They all want to know what Northeast is going to do with it, if they can buy it,” he said. “We all remember that car.” Northeast officials said they have not yet decided what to do with it. They offered to let Stratton drive it at the front of the parade, but he declined. Perhaps he’s gotten used to the idea of never driving his father’s beloved car. “Even though I can drive a stick, I said I’d rather ride in the back with [son] Alex,” Stratton said. The parade will kick off at 5 p.m. today, starting at the corner of Lafayette and State streets. Floats will proceed down State Street to Erie Boulevard, going under the railroad bridge, and then turn left and end near the I-890 interchange. In past years, the parade has lasted about two hours. Free parking will be available in the Broadway parking garage and at the downtown street-level parking lots, as well as the municipal parking lot behind Proctors. Dress warmly: the National Weather Service expects temperatures to be in the mid- to upper 30s during the parade. It may snow as well, but only flurries are predicted.
Greeting the season Annual Gazette parade ushers in the holidays BY TATIANA ZARNOWSKI Gazette Reporter
Firetrucks decked out in colored lights, marching bands playing “Jingle Bells” and “Deck the Halls” and people sporting red Santa hats with their signature white pom poms — yup, Christmas season has begun. The Gazette Holiday Parade stepped off Saturday evening almost a week earlier than usual, and it attracted some SCHENECTADY first-timers who never attended when the parade was customarily held on Black Friday. “It’s always after Thanksgiving, and we can never go because we’re traveling,” said Meegan Mostransky of Niskayuna, who with her husband, Marc, brought their children, 4-year-old September and 2-year-old Kashius, to the parade. “The kids were old enough to enjoy it” this year, Marc Mostransky said. Schenectady police don’t estimate crowd numbers at the parade, but spokesman Lt. Brian Kilcullen thought the new date brought out a lighter crowd than usual when he rode through the parade route. “That was right at five o’clock. I believe more filled in afterward,” he said. In addition to being earlier on the calendar, the parade was earlier on the clock this year, starting at 5 p.m. instead of 7 p.m. to accommodate people with young children and to allow people to patronize local businesses afterward. Lots of youngsters took in the sights at the parade and danced to the sounds — everything from hiphop to rock to traditional Christmas tunes. “The music’s great, too,” said Heather Stanton of Schenectady. “It gets you in the spirit.” Fifteen-month-old Isaac Barker sat calmly in his mother’s arms while the elaborate floats, which included vintage television themes such as “The Addams Family” and “Gilligan’s Island,” drove by. “The lights are really nice,” said his mother, Julie Barker of Glenville. “He enjoys music.” It was Isaac’s second parade — he also viewed the Veterans Day parade in Albany. “We both have fond memories of going to parades when we were kids,” said Isaac’s dad, Matthew Barker. Heather Stanton of Schenectady said she hadn’t been to the Schenectady parade since 1997, when her then-boyfriend was a drum major and she watched him march. “I remember it being really cold,” she said. The creative floats got “oohs” and “ahhs” from spectators. The Altamont Fire Department dressed up as the Hooterville Volunteer Fire Department from the TV show “Green Acres.” Clifton Park-Halfmoon Fire Department District 1 had reindeer riding on the top of their ladder truck, or at least people in reindeer costumes. The Albany-based Chocolate Thunder Marching and Dancing Band, which combines music, color guard and step dance moves, received rave reviews from Sharon Gomez as it stopped at the corner of State and Lafayette streets to perform a dance number. It was Gomez’s first holiday parade in Schenectady. “I’ve lived here 20 years and this is my first year” at the parade, Gomez said. She came because her son played in the Schenectady High School band and her daughter is a tap dancer at the Carver Community Center. Richard McElreath of Albany said he liked the parade’s earlier date. “It kind of gets people in the spirit,” he said. “This time of year for some people is really depressing” because of the colder temperatures, he said. No one seemed depressed when Santa Claus brought up the rear of the parade; he and his entourage received loud cheers from the crowd. Once again, the First United Methodist Church on the corner of State and Lafayette streets served free hot chocolate to warm up paradegoers and kept their restrooms open during the nearly two-hour parade. “They were trickling in and out because it’s starting to get a little bit cold,” church member Sue Edwards said of the people seeking refreshments before the parade began. Police reported no arrests during the parade and said the only call they received was for a pedestrian struck near Schenectady County Community College. It was unclear whether that person had attended the parade, and Kilcullen said he wasn’t sure of the extent of the injuries. At top, Santa and Mrs. Claus wave to the crowd Saturday evening at the end of the Gazette Holiday Parade on State Street in Schenectady. Above, Shakenia Boston, 14, left, and Neiman Ortiz, 15, and the Hamilton Hill Steel Drum Band perform Saturday during the parade. At left, members of The Dance Studio of Guilderland perform to the theme from “I Dream of Jeannie.” ANA N. ZANGRONIZ/ GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER ANA N. ZANGRONIZ/GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER Michelle Monaco, left, and her niece Savanna Ingoldspy, 5, of Schenectady, wave to passing floats Saturday during the annual Gazette Holiday Parade on State Street.
I would like to respond to the Nov. 17 letters from Jennifer Purcell and Maureen and Bob Burger regarding the Gazette holiday parade. I also agree that organizers should not have changed the date and time of the parade. It has been a tradition for many years. I think that Proctors and other businesses, etc. should plan ahead, knowing that the Friday after Thanksgiving is a tradition, and not schedule the show. Return the parade to the original time. MARIE KLUCINA Schenectady
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