There will be a shortage at today’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade – of politicians.
Tens of thousands of New Yorkers will march 42 blocks up Fifth Avenue today in the 247th St. Patrick’s Day Parade, but they will do so without political bigwigs such as Mayor Bloomberg.
Hizzoner won’t be there because he and many other city and state politicians will be in Albany attending the swearing-in of David Paterson as the state’s new governor.
But Bloomberg got into the spirit of things a day early yesterday, marching in The Bronx’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
The mayor marched the two-mile route with a host of elected officials. Most were from The Bronx, but the group also included Rep. Anthony Weiner, who represents Brooklyn and Queens. There was also a parade in Brooklyn.
Bloomberg, wearing a green sweater, was received enthusiastically. There were chants of “Four more years as governor!” and “Why not run for president?”
The mayor smiled, shouted “Erin go bragh!” waved the Irish flag and posed for pictures with children who had shamrocks painted on their faces.
Bloomberg said that New Yorkers are “people of all ethnicities [and] backgrounds” and many “have a little bit of Irish in them.”
The mayor took time to stop and lay a wreath at the Sept. 11 memorial along the parade route, where green carnations were laid.
“It’s very sad for those we lost, but it should give us hope for the future,” he said. “These people who died were part of our future just as much as they were part of our past.”
One of the people who will be marching is Lisa Murtagh, 28, a New York lawyer who is the international Rose of Tralee.
Murtagh, who started as the New York Rose of Tralee, was picked as the international rose in August.
She reigns for a year as the queen of the festival of the Irish city of Tralee.