Southie St. Patrick’s Day Parade to be cut short due to snow mounds
For the third time in four years, the city’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade through South Boston will be cut short because of snow.
“Yesterday’s snowfall makes it more difficult to manage this weekend’s parade in South Boston and it has created a situation where we do not feel that it is safe enough for children and families to watch the parade, especially on side streets, which are already difficult to navigate after a storm,” police Commissioner William B. Evans said yesterday in a statement.
“It is important not to add more congestion to the roads in the neighborhood,” he added. “Utilizing the snow route that has been successful in years past will be safer for all of us.”
The parade, organized by the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council, has been a Southie tradition since 1901 and commemorates St. Patrick and the evacuation of British troops on March 17, 1776. It traditionally begins at the MBTA’s Broadway Station and proceeds nearly the entire length of Broadway before turning west down side streets and past Dorchester Heights before ending at Old Colony Drive.
But the route was shortened to the end of Broadway after the city was walloped by record-setting blizzards in 2015, and again last year amid fears of more snowstorms.
Mayor Martin J. Walsh said earlier this week that he was concerned about parade watchers trying to scale 4- and 5-foothigh mounds of snow. In a statement yesterday, he stressed that the city’s “number one priority” was to keep residents safe.
South Boston City Councilor Ed Flynn agreed, saying, “The No. 1 thing for me is public safety. I want to make sure the people who live in South Boston are safe and the people who come to the neighborhood are safe.”
South Boston Allied War Veterans Council President David Falvey said he hoped to march the full route, but understood city officials’ concerns.
“I appreciate City Hall and their perspective on this,” he said. “I think the bad guy here is Mother Nature.”