German American Steuben Day Parade Jollifies UES, Jippie!

Few events on the Manhattan cultural calendar enfold such a rich and complex history as the German American Steuben Day Parade. Held annually since 1957, this year’s event proceeded up Fifth Avenue from 68th to 86th Streets on the warm, sunny Saturday of Sept. 19. Though attendance was sparse in parts, spectators had ample opportunity to engage the parade’s participants, show and express their oompah pride. Red, black and yellow, the colors of the German flag, abounded.

The event is named after Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben (1730-1794), aka “Baron von Steuben,” a highly accomplished Prussian-born general who, after arriving at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. as a volunteer in February 1778, helped General George Washington turn the ragtag Continental Army into a disciplined fighting force. Appointed Inspector General by Washington, Steuben would serve through the war’s final campaign, a three-week siege of Yorktown, Virginia, beginning in September 28, 1781.

After the war, Steuben became a US citizen, attended President Washington’s first inauguration in 1789, and retired to upstate New York, in Oneida. His estate became part of the town called Steuben, where he’s buried at what today is the Steuben Memorial State Historic Site. Though New York City boasts no Steuben monument, Staten Island, the Bronx and Brooklyn all have streets named for him. In the last, there’s also Steuben Park, tucked in between the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a short distance from what, by the 1850s, was a heavily German section of Williamsburg.

German immigrants played an important role in the U.S. Civil War too. More than 30,000 men from New York alone served, including in the famed 52nd New York Infantry Regiment, compised of companies called German Rangers and Sigel’s Rifles, the latter named for General Franz Sigel, who is honored by an imposing monument at West 106th Street in Riverside Park, and a park named after him on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. German-born General Carl Schurz, best known today for his eponymous Upper East Side park.

Though German Yorkville– born of an uptown migration that accelerated after the the 1904 Slocum disaster devastated the Lower East Side’s Kleindeutschland–is vastly diminished from what it once was, traces remain. There’renowned butcher, Schaller & Weber, at 1654 Second Avenue, and the nearby Heidelburg Restaurant. Taken together, though the German Parade could have comfortably fit on Madison Avenue, its heritage makes the Fifth Avenue route both deserved and apt.

The grand marshals for this year’s parade were Till Knorn, German consul general in New York, and 89-year-old Gerhard Rossbach, a retired electronics business executive and consultant. Born in 1937, Rossbach began his long as a tool and die maker at Mercedes Benz AG in the 1950s.

Making his return to the parade this year was local state Assemblymember Alex Bores; asked where he was last year, the solon explained he only missed it because his son was born around that time; fair enough, dad!

As for the absence of other Manhattan politicians, the reasons for their non-attendance are open to speculation. Germans aren’t the only ethnic group so overlooked. A variety of Asian, Hispanic and Europeans are also routinely passed over, as is, save by Gale Brewer and Assemblymember Charles Fall, the non-ethnic July 4 parade in lower Manhattan. Suffice it to say, while there are far too many parades for any Manhattan politician to attend all them, or even a majority, if there’s not an obvious constituency, or an overriding reason to court good “optics,” most solons are likely to pass.

No matter, the gemütlichkeit (good feeling) was abundant anyway. Highlights of the line of march included the NYPD and other marching bands; a Miss German America float celebrating America 250; and numerous phalanxes of cops and firefighters from Nassau and Suffolk Counties, Long Island. There were also an ample number of adorably costumed Bavarians; the Doberman Gang dog club; the Pommersche Tanzdeel Freistadtand danders, radiant in red and white; and the exuberant Hofbräu München float, including a smiling fräulein bearing a sign: Hold That Stein!

One Sunday, Two Parades

The nuances of parade politics could be seen again the next day, as two events took place nearly simultaneously: the Mexican Independence Day Parade, which traversed Madison Avenue from 41st to 27th streets, and the African-American Day Parade, which ran up Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard (Seventh Avenue) from 111th to 125th streets in Harlem.

Despite an intermittent drizzle, the Mexican parade was very well-attended—except by politicians— affirming its rank among the most popular Madison Avenue parades. Last year, City Council Member, a Democratic Socialist from a Brooklyn district including Mexican Sunset Park, was the sole solon in attendance.

Uptown, the political representation was better: Attorney General Letitia James, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, City Council Member Yousef Salaam; Comptroller Mark Levine— carrying a red, black and green Pan-African flag—and Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clarke were all on the scene. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch was present, as were representatives of the Mayor’s Office, though Zohran Mamdani didn’t attend himself.

Also notably absent was the Harlem’s future Democratic Socialist Congresswoman Darializa Avila Chevalier. Indeed, just as Chevalier, who is herself Afro-Latina of Dominican descent, ignored the huge Dominican Day Parade in July, her otherwise active social media accounts did not acknowledge the African-American Day Parade.