After two years, the New York Carnival kicks off Monday along Brooklyn’s Eastern Parkway from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.—featuring colorful Caribbean-inspired costume creations, music, food and full of happy island enthusiasm.
And before the New York Carnival procession is the independent J’Ouvert pre-dawn parade, with its array of mud, oil and dust costumes, cleverly designed get-ups (often with satirical social and political themes) and “steel band only” entertainment with non-ensembles of the amplified percussion rhythm.
The Grand New York Carnival Parade is the culmination of a five-day festival of events. On Sunday, New York Carnival’s penultimate show, the DJ-backed Paintopia Jouvert NYC, will be held on the grounds of the Brooklyn Museum, starting at 7 p.m.
On Labor Day Monday, four grand marshals will lead the procession along a 1.9-mile route. Masquerade bands and presentations by cultural groups will follow, and a large vendor street fair will be ever-present on the streets, said a spokeswoman for the West Indian Day Carnival Association, organizer of the event.
There has been a strong response to registration for the parade (after the event was canceled for two years due to COVID-19), and close to 20 marching bands will sashay through the park. Masquerade costumes, a mainstay of carnivals, are works of wonder – designed and finished as a labor of love and dedication to Caribbean culture.
This dedication drives artisans through the design and production of costumes in pre-parade “mass camps” – with work taking place after 9 to 5 workdays and on weekends. The results of their work are an array of magnificent costumes that can rival, even surpass, the designs made for Broadway stage fancies.
“This year our return to the park inspires us to continue the cultural work on behalf of the community, the city, the state and our partners,” said a WIADCA spokeswoman. “Without them, especially the mas and pan groups, we wouldn’t be here today.”
But long before the Eastern Parkway events begin at 11 a.m., Labor Day Monday’s festivities begin before dawn with J’Ouvert revelers parading, at 6 a.m., from Grand Army Plaza, southeast, in the Prospect Lefferts Gardens neighborhood.
“The City of New York with Mayor Eric L. Adams and the New York City Police Department are partnering for a safer Labor Day weekend,” reads part of a city website promoting J’Ouvert. connecting with history in traditional Trinidad. rooted event and providing a map of the parade route.
J’Ouvert City International, which organizes the event starting at 6am, has selected 20 grand marshals for their “unwavering dedication and contribution to the preservation and conservation of our Caribbean art form”.
For more information on J’Ouvert, visit the city’s website at nyc.gov/jouvert. And for more information on the New York Carnival, visit carnival.nyc.
ENTERPRISE “PERFECT LEMON”
Grand Slam-winning professional tennis star Sloane Stephens, who competed at this year’s US Open in Queens, appeared before her first scheduled match to promote her new partnership with the brand’s upgraded water “Lemon Perfect”.
Stephens, who won the 2017 US Open, was on hand at a pop-up expo on August 29 (National Lemon Day) to promote Lemon Hydrating Water – featuring a large amount of “Lemon Perfect” bottled water, plants of fruity lemon trees, and a matching lemon yellow Plymouth automobile.
Lemon Perfect will support Stephens’ charitable endeavors — her nonprofit Sloane Stephens Foundation and her Doc & Glo Scholarship, named for her grandparents. Stephens’ maternal grandfather was of Trinidadian descent. Visit lemonperfect.com and learn more about Stephens’ charities at the Sloane Stephens Foundation.
JAMAICA ANNIVERSARY GALA
Looking proudly to the past and confidently to the future, the Jamaica Jubilee Black Tie Gala marked the 60th anniversary of the Caribbean nation’s independence from the United Kingdom with an affair in the Grand Ballroom of the Marriott Marquis in Manhattan on August 20.
The benefit event – which helps “health, education and community development in Jamaica and here in New York” – was attended by Mayor Adams and other VIPs.
