Makin’ a splash, havin’ a blast
Mermaids flood streets of Coney for start-of-summer parade
The Mermaid Parade, after a two-year COVID absence, was back Saturday — along with the Big Hair Girls, a few random mermen, the requisite scantily clad marchers and a huge Boardwalk crowd.
The usual and unusual assortment of revelers was thrilled by the long-awaited return of Coney Island’s official start to the summer for the first time since 2019. Crowds lined Surf Ave. as classic cars and motorized floats drove past in the parade’s comeback. A group dressed as crabs screamed the theme song to “SpongeBob SquarePants.”
“There hasn’t been a parade in two years because of COVID and it’s one of our yearly family traditions,” said Vness Free, who attended with two of her sisters. “We love seeing our magical mer-people having fun. It’s just a fun New York City tradition that we wouldn’t miss for the world.”
Her sibling Suzy Free, wearing a faux squid on her head, was equally effusive about the parade’s resurrection for its 40th year.
“I’m timeless, just like this tradition,” said Free, part of the pop group the Big Hair Girls with her siblings. “You can do your own thing. Every year we come, we get more elaborate. The Mermaid Parade is one of those things you hear about.
“And when you come, it’s like ‘Oh my God, I found my people.’ ”
The marchers were led by this year’s King Neptune and Queen Mermaid, former city Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi and singer/actress/author Mx Justin Vivian Bond. Chokhki rode with his daughter on his lap on an afternoon with temperatures in the 60s for the nation’s largest art parade and one of the city’s signature summer events.
They were joined by revelers wearing little more than body paint and sequined thongs or dressed as a school of jellyfish. People lining the route posed for photos with the mermaids and mermen marching past, and one throwback marcher appeared decked out as Popeye the Sailor Man.
Anthony Losquadro, 57, showed up with a nonprofit anti-circumcision advocacy group and expressed his delight at returning after the two-year absence.
“This is our third time here and we’re happy to be back after the pandemic,” he said. “We love being here because it’s about freedom and expressing yourself with what you want to do with your own body. So I think it fits in with today’s parade.”
The majority of marchers came with a simpler message: Let’s have a good time.
“It’s a fun time and I’m happy to bring our daughter so she can see people be creative and express themselves and just have fun,” said Talica Jackson, who came with her partner Margaret Fiori and their child.
Fiori agreed, noting the parade allowed her to “be free and experience people being their truest self.”