1000s of Proud Poles Parade up 5th Avenue for Pulaski Day

It was a fantastic, sunny summer-like day in autumn as thousands of proud and plucky Poles and their plenitude of pals filled Fifth Avenue from 39th to 54th streets for the annual Pulaski Day Parade on Sunday, Oct. 5.

The annual event is held on the first Sunday in October to roughly coincide with General Pulaski Memorial Day on Oct. 11. Before Pulaski was the name of a bridge the New York City Marathon runs over between Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and Long Island City, Queens, that surname belonged to a man named Casimir.

Born in 1745 in Warsaw, in what was then the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Pulaski was from a noble family deeply concerned about their nation’s politics. As an army calvary officer, Pulaski was part of the Bar Confederation, and the fight against foreign—especially Russian—domination. Their battles from the late 1760s through 1772, when the Bar Confederation was defeated, led to Poland’s partition, and to Pulaski’s escaping to France.

Poland’s loss would be another fighting nation’s gain, as Benjamin Franklin and the Marquis de Lafayette encouraged Pulaski to come to America and join the revolution there, which he did, arriving in Massachusetts in July 1877. From the Battle of Brandywine to the Siege of Savannah, where he was killed on Oct. 11, 1779, Pulaski fought bravely for American independence.

Today, the Casimir Pulaski Monument, erected in 1853, stands proudly in Savannah’s Monterey Square, while the 3.52-mile-long Pulaski Skyway Bridge, dedicated in 1933, from Jersey City to Newark ranks among the metropolitan region’s most impressive spans—a fact consecrated by its appearance in the opening montage of The Sopranos.

Mahattan’s first Pulaski Day Parade was held in 1937. It was founded by Francis J. Wazeter, a New York-born former Fordham football player and prominent lawyer whose father, Leon, was a banker and publisher of the Polish daily newspaper, Wolna Polska (Free Poland). Wazeter attended all the Pulaski Day parades until his death in 1970. Though previously a Democrat, Wazeter a became a Republican after World War II, when he was angered by President Truman’s failure to defend Poland’s independence from the Soviet Union.

Knowing even the outline of these complications and travails goes a long way to understanding the exuberance, pride, and fortitude of the people at the Pulaski Day Parade.

The theme is this year’s event was “The 1,000th Anniversary of the Polish Kingdom.”

Appropriately for such a landmark, Szymon Hołownia, speaker of the Sejm, Poland’s Lower House of Parliament, called on attendees to pass on their pride in Poland to their children.

The presence of myriad Polish diplomats, police, and military personnel highlighted the bizarre absence of city politicians from the event. Only Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa, who is himself part Polish, and his wife Nancy were seen in attendance.

While Manhattan electeds get a pass on skipping many parades, or else they’d never have a free weekend, that doesn’t explain the absence of Mayor Adams, a former parade lover who now appears to be coasting to the finish of his one-and-done administration; or dueling mayoral candidates Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo, neither of whom sent representatives to the event. The same goes for the reps for Polish Greenpoint (Democrat Lincoln Restler on the City Council, and Democratic Socialist Emily Gallagher in the State Assembly) and the Governor’s office.

Though the Pulaski Day Parade isn’t alone in being overlooked— German, Filipino, and Indian parades in Manhattan were likewise passed over this year—it’s a bracing reminder how, in politics-speak, “inclusion” isn’t as inclusive as it sounds. Swayable votes and money come first and perhaps since many Poles live in nearby suburbs, not the city proper, they are not considered a voting bloc to chase.

Among the early highlights: a muscular NYPD Counterterrorism officer offering a cloth dog-bone-like ball toy to his happy white-and-black-colored K-9 partner after a well-done sniffing of the crowd; all the music and dancing, including the signature polonaise, done in the street in front of the main branch of NYPL; and all the side streets in the upper 30s used as staging areas bursting both with red-and-white everything, and a stunning array of floats, custom cars, from tiny Fiats to almost monster trucks, and motorcycles.

Among the notable participants: NYPD Mounted and Ceremonial units, including the latter’s commanding officer, Captain Jack Conway, whose mere presence makes parade reporters wish they looked sharper than they do; and the department’s Marching Band.

Representing the Polish New Jersey diaspora were phalanxes of radiant women, men, and children from Bayonne, Lyndhurst, Passaic, Perth Amboy, and other municipalities, some in various service uniforms, some in traditional Polish costume.

Long Island and upstate Poles were also in attendance, the latter with a fantastic red-tractor-pulled float from the Hudson Valley Polonaise Society, with one sign honoring Pope John Paul II and another reading “We Salute Our Polish Ancestors for Their Contributions to the Building of American Agriculture.”

Poles from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and even little ol’ Brooklyn made their presence known also, the last including St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church in Flatbush.