Outdoors in New York          

It's the dog days of February.  There's a couple of inches of snow on the ground - old snow, so it's dirty and slushy rather than crisp and fresh - and the wind chill is just a few degrees above zero.  So inevitably, I started thinking wistfully of summer, of parades, street fairs, and other outdoor events.

One of the best-known, of course, is one of the first - Saint Patrick's Day.  I usually avoid it, because crowds of somewhat inebriated people are not my favorite thing.  But last year I went to two Saint Paddy's parades - one was the big one in Manhattan on March 17, and the other was the local one in the Irish neighborhood of Sunnyside and Woodside, which takes place a couple of weeks earlier.  They couldn't be more different!  The big one has thousands of people watching, many dressed in costume (see photos at right). The local one was created in part when Irish gays and lesbians were not allowed to march under their own banner in the "big" parade, and features local Irish organizations, groups of young drummers and dancers, and the McCourt brothers (author Frank McCourt and his three brothers, Malachy, Frank and Alphie).

St. Patrick's day is just the first of many parades in New York, from the traditional (July 4) to the outrageous (the Mermaid Parade in Coney Island).

Then there are the street fairs.  While a lot of people feel they have become interchangeable, because the effort and paperwork it takes to be a vendor makes it more worthwhile for the big organizations that appear at every fair, we use them as an excuse to go to a neighborhood we may never have explored before.  That's how we got to Brighton Beach (the Russian enclave - with Russian cafes on the boardwalk, and incredibly cheap restaurants on the avenues, all featuring authentic Russian food, including pelmeni, an addiction of mine.  We've been to Bay Ridge, where we discovered the best street music of any street fair, and to Woodside, which has the best Irish bars and restaurants.  And the big fair in Greenwich Village is a lot of fun, too, with great music and food.

Sometimes the best street fairs are the little ones on the side streets, but they are the hardest to find, because they don't require avenue closings and re-routing of buses, etc., so they don't appear on the city's lists.  We always try to make it to "Perryphernalia" - a kind of super-garage-sale on Perry Street in Greenwich Village.  (If Perry Street looks familiar, it's because it's where Carrie Bradshaw "lived" on "Sex and the City.")  The other ones we like are a couple of neighborhood ones on the upper east side, run by churches.  One, run by the Church of the Holy Trinity,  features the French Cookin' Blues Band, and draws a crowd of dancing, finger-snapping locals.  The other is run by the St. Stephen's of Hungary church, and features great home-cooked Hungarian food.

Not all the fairs are on the street, though.  Last year we made it to the Medieval Festival in Fort Tryon Park at the north end of Manhattan.  (That's where the Cloisters, the museum of medieval art is - I love that place!)  Lots of people dress in full costume, and come to watch the jousting, falconry, and to buy new costumes for next year's fair.  (A tip from the organizers - if you want to wear a costume, keep in mind that the grand costumes of kings and princesses, with layers of velvet, are swelteringly hot if the weather's warm.  Peasant costumes are much more comfortable!)  See photos of last year's fair at right.

Well, it's still February, there are still inches of dirty snow outside, but I feel better now I've reminisced about last summer.  Spring will be here before I know it!