BROOKLYN LABOR DAY CELEBRATIONS

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Tel:- 718-272-1646

By Roy 'The Dutchman" Van Dyke

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Come September each year, for the past forty-odd years, Eastern parkway becomes the focal point of Brooklyn and the rest of the Big Apple. Not thousands, nay millions of New Yorkers and visitors from almost every State, shed everyday problems, and morph into a new being, intoxicated with hot Caribbean music and other cultural practices of the people from the many scattered islands, in what is known as the Caribbean basin.

One New Yorker said: "many of us have lost our jobs, businesses have disappeared through the process of 'migration' to other countries,if you get the drift, and we have been subjected to even more pain, because of the insensitive and downright spiteful attitude of those GOP politicians, who voted against  unemployment benefits, but none of that matter a lick,when Labor Day comes calling.It is   a time of “forgetfulness”...  a ritual that brings the people together. It's just something that must happen each year.”

Brooklyn Labor Day Carnival indeed, is unlike other cultural celebrations, of which there are many, because of New York’s cultural diversity.Labor Day carnival brings together the largest gathering of people of different ethnicities and cultural backgrounds, with a single intent-that of enjoying themselves.

The atmosphere on Labor Day is heavy with the pulsating sounds of the Steel-pan and the sweet hip-moving tempo of the Calypso, emanating from “sound-trucks” laden with prancing musicians and blaring instruments. For everyone, the long wait was over, Eastern Parkway was about to give birth to the largest cultural parade in all of America-Brooklyn Labor Day Carnival. Nothing else matters on this the first Monday of September, but the sweet 'pains' of Labor Day.

A riot of color, maddening music and a mass of humanity cradled between barricades along Eastern Parkway from Utica Avenue to Grand Army Plaza; clad in aesthetic costumes, some painted, some tarred and feathered, others entombed in breath-taking creations that boggles the imagination, and still others, in costumes, or the  lack of it, which lavishly display parts of their bodies that cause eyebrows to raise and generated talking points on public indecency.

Brooklyn Labor Day Carnival on Eastern parkway showcases the diversity of American cultural experience; a dynamic which has impacted the development of this great nation dating back umpteen years. And according to the West Indian American Carnival Association website, things are already on the move.

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Hold On Firmly by Roy Van Dyke, is a must read for book lovers. It's a riveting narration of episodes of his life that speaks of honesty; a maturity that is lacking even among public figures. Van Dyke exposes a political culture in his native Guyana, that speaks of corruption as its main platform. Hold On Firmly is available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, publishamerica.com or you can contact the author at , [email protected], [email protected] or Tel:718-272-1646. 

He has done it again! Roy Van Dyke has crafted another book that paints an ugly and frightening picture of organized crime in Guyana and the Caribbean. Van Dyke talks about the genesis of the Caribbean Crime Syndicate from its very conception in the bowels of Rikers Island prison in the United States and through its formation,by Felons, deported from the bowels of that prison. The deportation of felons back to the Caribbean in the mid-1970's, triggered an explosion of criminal activities that changed the landscape-hostilities and murder replaced hospitality. Bad Things Tend To Linger, even though set in the 70's, reflects present day life in Guyana and the Caribbean. Corruption is still the platform public officials stand proudly on while the country's infrastructure fall  apart and decent people migrate like birds at winter time for safer ground.