After last year’s cancellation due to bad weather, today, on Monday, October 12, Columbus Day Parade returns to Manhattan, one of the main events of the Italian American community in New York. The parade, which reached its 82nd edition, will begin at 11:30, local time, and will cross the Fifth Avenue from 47th to 72nd Street, with bands, allegorical wagons and cultural delegations from Italy and the United States.
The event is organized by the Columbus Citizens Foundation, an association that promotes Italian culture in the United States and finances scholarships for Italian American students. According to the official program, over one hundred groups will participate. The 2026 edition is also dedicated to the contribution of Italians to American history, in the year of the 250th anniversary of the independence of the United States.
The designated Grand Marshal is Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates and philanthropist of Italian origins. Dalio will not personally lead the parade: to represent him will be his son Matt. The participation of Mayor Zohran Mamdani is not foreseen, whose absence comes after the controversy with some Italian American organizations on the celebrations dedicated to Christopher Columbus.
The parade takes place every year on the occasion of the Columbus Day, a federal holiday reminiscent of the arrival of Colombo in the Americas in 1492. In recent years the event has become the subject of discussion in the United States, where several administrations have introduced the Indigenous Peoples’ Day to remember native peoples and the consequences of European colonization. In New York, the event continues to be one of the main events of the Italian American associations.
To allow participants to pass, the Department of Transportation has provided road closures on Fifth Avenue and the side streets, with restrictions that will affect Midtown and the Upper East Side. The parade is free for the public and will be broadcast live from ABC7 New York from 12 to 15, local time.
L’articolo Columbus Day Parade on Fifth Avenue proviene da IlNewyorkese.
