Traveling to a spectacular St. Patrick’s Day parade doesn’t require a ton of effort on my part since I live near a city that is home to one of the best of the best. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has been celebrating St. Paddy’s Day with marching bands and crowds of revelers since March 17, 1843. The event predates Milwaukee’s incorporation as a city and the statehood of Wisconsin.
This year the parade takes place on Saturday, March 12th at high noon in downtown Milwaukee. The event gets underway in front of the Shops of Grand Avenue on 3rd and Wisconsin, and proceeds east to Plankinton, north on Plankinton to Kilbourn, west on Kilbourn to Old World 3rd Street, north on Old World 3rd Street to Juneau, East on Juneau to Water Street, then south on Water Street, where most of the spectators congregate.
For 2011, parades organizers are pulling out all the stops lining up close to 200 units including marching bands, local celebrities, floats, bagpipe brigades and dozens of Irish and Celtic organizations.
Milwaukee may have one of the oldest St. Patrick’s Day parades on record, but it is certainly not the largest. New York City has the honor of hosting one the most popular St. Paddy’s Day parade in the world. Oceans of green wearing spectators fill the streets of the Big Apple to view the largest St. Patrick’s Day parade on the planet. Led by the U.S. 69th infantry, the event boasts around 150,000 marchers, and draws more than 2 million spectators per year.
This year’s parade takes place on March 17th. It starts off on 44th Street and travels up Fifth Avenue, past St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the American Irish Historical Society, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art at 83rd Street and ends on 86th Street.
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