Bridgeport to celebrate greatly scaled back, statue-less Columbus Day
‘No walkers. No marching bands. No dancers.’
BRIDGEPORT — When local Italian Americans gather this weekend to celebrate Columbus Day, they will do it with a greatly scaled back parade and a wreath laying ceremony sans the statue of the navigator.
From graduations to birthdays, the car caravan has become the way to safely commemorate events during the COVID-19 pandemic. So Sunday organizers of the annual Columbus Day Parade will mark what would have been the 112th year of Italian-American themed festivities with a limited caravan of their own.
“It’s going to be a carand-truck parade only,” said former state Rep. Christopher Caruso, emphasizing participants must wear face masks and socially distance. “No walkers. No marching bands. No dancers.”
And also no Italian street festival.
Seven months into the health crisis and such strict limits on normally festive public traditions — if they have not been completely canceled — should not come as a surprise to anyone given warnings from elected and health officials about spreading the novel coronavirus.
“We want to safely continue the 112th parade,” Caruso said. “We feel this is probably the best way to do that.”
He also emphasized that not just anyone will be allowed to add their vehicle to the procession and it is invitation-only by the Council of Italian American Societies of Greater Bridgeport.
“We’re limiting it just to people who have been in the parade before or have some connection with it because we don’t know how large it could get,” Caruso said.
The parade will begin Sunday at 11 a.m. at Wayne Street and Jewett Avenue, head south on Wayne Street to Madison Avenue and disperse at Micalizzi’s Italian Ice. There will be a grand marshal, former Mayor Leonard Paoletta.
From there Caruso said the group will drive to Shelton, which for one year in 2018 hosted the parade after a dispute between organizers and Bridgeport over police overtime. Caruso said the vehicles will meet at Howe Avenue and Woos
ter Street around 12:30 p.m., proceed South on Howe Avenue, left onto Cornell Street and disperse.
COVID-19 has not been the only challenge 2020 has presented to parade organizers. On Monday a small group will lay a wreath where the statue of Columbus used to be located in Seaside Park.
Mayor Joe Ganim abruptly took the likeness of the navigator down July 6, fearing it would become another casualty in a nationwide effort to either peacefully or by force remove monuments to divisive historical figures. While Columbus is celebrated by some as an Italian-American hero, others view the navigator as a symbol of colonialism and racism.
Ganim recently ignored an order by the parks board , which has jurisdiction over municipal parkland, to return the statue within 45 days in an effort to get the pro- and anti-Columbus sides to work out a compromise about its fate. Whether the monument eventually returns to the park or is placed elsewhere remains to be seen.
“We’re going to put (the wreath) at the pedestal. It’s a tradition we began many, many years ago and on behalf of our ancestors and fellow Italian Americans who raised money for the statue,” Caruso said. “We’re going to keep the tradition going. It’s who we are. It’s our heritage.”
He added: “And it’s a statement on our part we haven’t given up on the statue being reinstalled.”