Date: Sunday, January 29, 2012
Time: 11:30AM – 4:00PM Festival & Booths
Time: 1:00 PM Parade starts
Location:Starts at Little Italy and goes through the main streets of Lower Manhattan/Chinatown and ends at Grand St by Sara Roosevelt Park.
Cultural Festival & Booth: Sara Roosevelt Park (Canal & Forsyth St)
A colorful spectacle featuring floats, marching bands, lion and dragon dancers, antique cars, beauty queens, Asian & Hispanic musical performers, magicians and acrobats, and local organizations. The floats will feature various cultural performances and special guests. Over 6,000 individuals will march in the Parade, which will span every major street in Chinatown. This is the biggest winter parade in the East Coast and a national and international tourist attraction. Elected officials, celebrities and community leaders are scheduled to take part in the Parade, which will be covered by local, national and international media. An outdoor cultural festival will take place at the Sara Roosevelt Park by Canal St & Forsyth St that will feature booths and performances by musicians, dancers, and martial artists.
The Chinatown Lunar New Year Parade & New Year’s Day Firecracker Ceremony was founded in 1999 to provide New york’s Chinese American community with a large scale celebration on par with those in San Francisco and Los Angeles. In recent years it has suppressed it, the event has grown into a New York City-wide affair and New York’s biggest winter tourist attraction, luring thousands of visitors from all over the United States and the world. With the dog parade 5 years ago and 4 years ago the Pig race, 2- colorful float, 20 antique cars, 200 cultural performers & 3000 marchers participating making the parade more exciting. Last year, a record 500,000 spectators flooded the streets of Chinatown to welcome the year of the Rabbit. A truly pan-Asian spectacle, the Parade features cultural performers and organizations from all across Asia, including China, Korea, Japan, Vietman, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and Hispanic & American dancer, bands and cultural floats.