Page 13 - BusinessWest March 7, 2022

Parade
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didn’t know this place was here, they learned that it’s here. So not having the race and the parade meant that new people weren’t learning about this place as much as if we had it; this is
an event when every bar can show off what they can do, and we missed out on that opportunity for two years.”
Nicole Ortiz is certainly looking
to make some introductions during this year’s parade. She’s the owner of Crave restaurant on High Street, just across the street from City Hall — and the reviewing stand for the parade.
She opened the establishment, which specializes in “modern and unique Puerto Rican food,” just over a year
ago and missed out on a parade that year. In fact, Ortiz, who started with a food truck in early 2020, hasn’t expe- rienced a parade as a business owner — although she’s heard quite a bit about the tradition from other business owners. She’s looking forward to the opportunity.
“They told me there’s tons of peo- ple down here, and they make tons of money,” she explained. “They say there’s tens of thousands of people
“I feel that the parade is going to be bigger and better than it’s been in years,” he said. “I think people are ready to get out and do stuff. We’re handling the road race, and I’m preparing for a record breaker.”
down here for the race as well as the parade; it sounds pretty crazy.”
Rivera is looking forward to 2022 being a breakout year, and he’s not alone in that assessment.
Indeed, the phrase pent-up demand has been used in almost every context imaginable over the past 24 months, from cars to dining out to vacationing. And when it comes to the parade and the road race, pent-up demand is real.
Mayor Garcia drew parallels between this year’s parade and last year’s Big E. Both marked the return of an institution that the region had to do without, he said, adding that the Big E saw record attendance one Saturday during its run last year, and he’s expect- ing something similar with the parade.
Rosskothen agreed. “I feel that the parade is going to be bigger and better than it’s been in years,” he said. “I think people are ready to get out and do stuff. We’re handling the road race, and I’m preparing for a record breaker.”
Rosskothen, like others we spoke
with, noted repeatedly that the parade and road race are not one day, or two days, as the case may be, but a week’s worth of celebration and, actually, several weeks’ worth of events, activi- ties, and Irish-related food, drink, and culture leading up to the climax of mid-March.
“It’s a whole month,” he said. “We start playing Irish music at our ven- ues, people go out, and in my case we start selling corned-beef-and-cabbage dinner packages in the beginning of March at Delaney’s Market. It’s all
tied into the parade; it puts your Irish mindset on for lack of a better phrase.”
Bottom Line
Joyce said that there are only about 500 of the program books left to dis- tribute at the parade. Those already given out have become a kind of dubi- ous collector’s item — a guide to a parade that didn’t happen, or wouldn’t happen for two years.
In a way, they have become a sym- bol, not of what was lost or of a time that stood still, but of the community’s resilience and of the immense impor- tance of this tradition to the city and the entire region. No one ever really doubted that importance; it was too obvious for that to happen. But three years removed from the last parade,
it is now even easier to see all that the parade and the race mean to Holyoke. It’s not just the revenue for those bars, restaurants, hotels, and banquet halls, although that’s a very big part of
it. It’s the sense of community, the feel- ing of pride, the people coming back to this city year after year. It’s history. It’s tradition. It’s Holyoke.
It’s something else, too. It’s normal, and everyone involved is excited that it has returned. u
George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]
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