Parade Route

The bocce tournament was in full swing by the time the float carrying the mariachi band came snaking through Little Italy's skinny streets. A cultural fusion was on display yesterday at the city's 117th Columbus Day parade, complete with a float representing the city's Hispanic Business Association, plenty of local high school marching bands and the standard, and always popular, Frank Sinatra impersonators. "Columbus opened the door for immigrants to come to the United States," said Angelo Solera, a Hispanic community advocate who helped coordinate the participation of Hispanic businesses.

St. Patty's Day ParadeCelebrate the luck of the Irish, Eastern Shore style, with a St. Patrick's Day Parade on Saturday in Ocean City. Cheer on more than 100 parade participants, including bands, step dancers, floats and marching units, which will follow the parade route along Coastal Highway to the 45th Street Village. Enjoy a festival with a variety of food and drink before and after the parade.The parade steps off at noon and proceeds along Coastal Highway, from 61st Street to the 45th Street Village.

Shaw memorialThere are three days left to view the dramatic installation of Augustus Saint-Gaudens' "Memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth Regiment," the monumental sculpture depicting the first African-American infantry unit from the North to fight for the Union during the Civil War. The installation at the National Gallery of Art in Washington closes after visiting hours Sunday for about seven months while skylights are replaced...

NEW YORK -- With golden sunlight glazing the autumn leaves and a light breeze sweeping down Broadway, it seemed a great day to honor John Glenn, and for tens of thousands of people, it was.But for the longest time yesterday morning, almost the only people to show up to honor the 77-year-old astronaut, U.S. senator and undisputed American hero were the police, firefighters and sanitation workers assigned to handle the crowd.Once the parade got under way, crowds were -- by New York standards -- modest if not thin, with indications along the traditional parade route that Mayor Rudolph Giuliani might have overestimated the public's appetite for a third ticker-tape extravaganza since October.

A stretch of downtown Baltimore seemed to be painted fire-engine red yesterday as a parade of 100 historic fire-fighting vehicles kicked off the last day of the 14th annual Firehouse and Emergency Services Expo.Steam-powered fire engines, hand-drawn hose carts and wooden ladder trucks were among the vehicles dating to the 19th century that made their way along a milelong route from ZTC Key Highway and Covington Street to the Baltimore Convention Center, where the expo was held.In honor of the city's bicentennial, only vehicles at least 25 years old could participate in the parade, organizers said.

There are few Baltimore traditions still going on today that began in 1936. The Thanksgiving Parade is one of them.Still, there have been some changes, and not just when it comes to the floats or participants.From 1936 to 1967, Baltimore's Thanksgiving Day Parade was actually held on Thanksgiving Day on Howard Street. But the parade was discontinued in 1967 because city officials believed people were more interested in watching live, televised extravaganzas on Thanksgiving Day rather than Baltimore's parade.

Green-eyed sisters Claire Kratz and Peggy Shenton waved from their traditional corner. Mike O'Shea served up Guinness stout and witticisms. And the governor of Maryland donned a shamrock colored sweater.Braving the chilly, dreary afternoon, tens of thousands of people filled the streets of downtown Baltimore yesterday to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in true style: With a big parade and displays of Irish culture.Green was the color of the day, and everyone from Gov. Parris N. Glendening to schoolchildren in marching bands wore some shade of it. The keening of bagpipes echoed along the parade route, where young and old watched, decked out in heavy sweaters, leprechaun hats and shamrock stickers.

The splendor of yesterday's historic visit of Pope John Paul II to Baltimore will cost city taxpayers more than originally planned, but Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke said it's well worth it.Although bills were not expected to be totaled until tomorrow, the mayor predicted cost overruns yesterday morning as the pontiff arrived at Baltimore-Washington International Airport."

POPE JOHN PAUL II MAY only be in Baltimore for half a day, but thousands of people, almost all of them volunteers, will have a hand in making the event happen.A cadre of about 100 volunteers has been working for months, doing the mundane chores to prepare for the pope. Thousands more will pitch in Sunday, acting as ushers at Camden Yards, giving directions, serving as parade marshals and shuttling bishops to and from the airport.Paul Coco, a human resources director at Hecht Co. and coordinator of volunteers, is himself a volunteer.

The special section in Wednesday's editions incorrectly reported that the parking garage of the Holiday Inn in the 300 block of West Pratt Street would be available to the public for watching the papal parade tomorrow. The garage will not be open to the public for watching the event.The Sun regrets the error.IF YOU DIDN'T WIN THE ticket lottery for the Mass at Camden Yards and weren't on the guest list for the prayer service at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, don't despair. You still have a chance to see the pope as he leads a parade through downtown Baltimore.

Plumed hats in hand, drum majors Melanie Ruston and Joshua Wilson stood at the entrance of Dulaney High School on Monday, awaiting their international guests. With them were band director Barry Chesky and the school's principal, Patrick S. McCusker - all anticipating the arrival of the former lord mayor of England's city of Westminster, as well as several other visitors from across the pond. The British came to Dulaney in Timonium to issue an official invitation to the Lion's Roar, the school marching band, to participate in the 2011 London New Year's Day Parade.

With cascades of shrieks and the pounding of oh-so-many teenage feet, they heralded his coming. At the center of the herd, rolling down York Road, was a National Guard Humvee with a lanky young man waving from its open roof. And they cheered again last night as the Olympic champion strolled onto the stage at historic Fort McHenry, celebrating as they watched each of his wins. Michael Phelps played it cool in the eye of this pubescent maelstrom, staring at the throngs of young women along the parade route through sunglasses, grinning far more casually than he had after his narrowest wins at the Beijing Olympics.

Florist? Check. Photographer? Check. Police traffic coordinator? Double check. Several Towson-area brides-to-be will share their big day Saturday with Michael Phelps, star of a parade that will shut down the town's main thoroughfare for hours. To something borrowed, something blue, add something stuck in traffic: an entire wedding party. Enough to morph the sweetest vision in white into Bridezilla. "We freaked out a little bit at first," said Elizabeth Rowley, who is to be married at St. Pius X Church, situated on the parade route formerly known as York Road.

The bocce tournament was in full swing by the time the float carrying the mariachi band came snaking through Little Italy's skinny streets. A cultural fusion was on display yesterday at the city's 117th Columbus Day parade, complete with a float representing the city's Hispanic Business Association, plenty of local high school marching bands and the standard, and always popular, Frank Sinatra impersonators. "Columbus opened the door for immigrants to come to the United States," said Angelo Solera, a Hispanic community advocate who helped coordinate the participation of Hispanic businesses.

Annapolis residents should be ready for street closures, parking restrictions and a 19-gun salute tomorrow during the inauguration festivities for Gov.-elect Martin O'Malley. Bladen Street will be closed to southbound traffic from Rowe Boulevard starting at 6:30 a.m. tomorrow. College Avenue will be closed eastbound from Church Circle except for official traffic starting at 9:30 a.m. State Circle, School Street and Francis Street will be closed from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. More streets will be closed for the inaugural parade, which is expected to begin at 1:30 p.m. The parade route runs from the main gate of the Naval Academy to East Street to State Circle to North Street.

MEISSNER PARADE Welcome home Olympic figure skater Kimmie Meissner at a grand parade in her honor tomorrow in Bel Air. The parade, which kicks off at 4 p.m. from the corner of Churchville and Main streets and travels north on Main Street, honors the 16-year-old skater, who finished in sixth place at this year's Olympic Games in Turin. In addition to Meissner and her family, others participating in the parade will include members of the Bel Air police department and Bel Air fire department, the Fallston High School Band, Bel Air town commissioners, Harford County Sheriff R. Thomas Golding, Harford County state delegates, representatives from Meissner's training site, Ice World, and a Bel Air public works department employee steering a snow plow along the parade route.

Minutes before President Bush's parade motorcade passed Fourth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, Celeste Zappala held up a photo of her dead son and urged hundreds of protesters not to give up pleading for peace in Iraq. "My son died looking for weapons of mass destruction, but instead of finding a weapon, the weapon found him," said Zappala, a 57-year-old Philadelphia resident, wiping away tears. Her son, Sherwood Baker, a National Guardsman, died last April in Baghdad when he was struck by debris from an explosion.

WASHINGTON - Helicopters buzzed the skies. Law enforcement officers stood on the roofs of federal buildings, including the White House, watching the crowds through binoculars. Police officers brought in from as far away as Chicago stood shoulder to shoulder along the parade route. The wait at security checkpoints was up to 90 minutes long. Welcome to the 55th inauguration. Please remove your shoes at the door. It seemed a small miracle that anyone attended the swearing-in or parade at all. Anyone trying to get within eyesight of the parade route was subject to a pat-down and metal detector test.

Peace protesters and would-be warriors, a Democratic mayor and a Republican governor, gay activists and gospel singers found common ground yesterday as they braved a bone-chilling wind to parade in honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. On a day that was as festive as it was frigid, parents and grandparents bundled up the kids, broke out their parkas and lined the boulevard named for the late civil rights leader to hear some of Baltimore's best marching bands and to admire the endurance of the thinly clad dancers.

Susannah Bridget Siger, Oh, what a difference a year makes -- or at least the weather. Last December's low temperatures and early snowfall gave more of a North Pole than North Baltimore feel to the annual Mayor's Christmas Parade through the city's Hampden and Medfield neighborhoods, and it was about as populated. But yesterday's sunshine, combined with just enough chill in the air to justify wearing a woolly winter scarf, drew back to the parade route thousands of spectators and about 160 marching bands, floats and kitschy marchers who make the parade a hallmark of the holiday season.