Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Mayor Bloomberg Booed at Queens St. Patrick's Day Parade

By DNAinfo Staff on March 7, 2011 1:30pm

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has met with mixed response from spectators at the Queens and Staten Island St. Patrick's Day Parades ahead of Manhattan's celebration March 17.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has met with mixed response from spectators at the Queens and Staten Island St. Patrick's Day Parades ahead of Manhattan's celebration March 17.
View Full Caption
DNAinfo/Olivia Scheck

By Gabriela Resto-Montero

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN — If this weekend's round of parades is any indication, Mayor Michael Bloomberg may have to brace himself for public reaction at the Manhattan St. Patrick's Day Parade on Thursday, March 17.

Paradegoers greeted Bloomberg with boos and jeers Saturday at the 36th Annual Queens County St. Patrick's Day in the Rockaways, the New York Times reported.

Spectators there said they were still annoyed with Bloomberg over the city's slow reaction to the Dec. 26 blizzard that paralyzed Queens, the Times reported.

"You ought to thank god there's not a snowstorm here, Mr. Mayor," Queens resident Danny Boyle reportedly said Saturday.

"Otherwise, you wouldn't make it," Boyle said.

The mayor tried to downplay the parade booing at a press conference in Queens Monday.

"There were a handful of people that expressed themselves," acknowledged the mayor, who said that many of the screams were lodged in opposition to his push to overturn the "Last in, first out" seniority-based teacher layoff policy and other government downsizing.

"We’re going to have some very tough times here," he said.

Still, he said that many others in the crowd gave him a thumbs-up.

"...I got an enormously warm reception in all three parades," he said, adding that back when the indoor smoking ban was being passed, the negative reception was far worse.

"You got a lot of one-fingered waves in those days," he said.

A day after the Queens parade, Staten Island residents gave Bloomberg a warmer welcome and kept the boos to a minimum, the Times reported.

A city decision to shorten all parades in the face of a huge budget shortfall was also unpopular with the crowd, the paper reported.

Bloomberg angered organizers of the St. Patrick's Day parade in February when he joked that he typically sees "inebriated" people hanging out of the windows of the American Irish Historical Society.

Despite the gaffe, Bloomberg was still expected to march in Manhattan's St. Patrick's Day parade on March 17.

Novelist Mary Higgins Clark will serve as the grand marshal.