March 14, 1977: St. Patrick's Day Parade

Not all of my reviews involved music 45 years ago. This assignment to me as a reporter working Sundays appeared on the front page of the local section. 

March 14, 1977

St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Mild Weather

Make Big Hit With ‘Best Crowd Ever’ 

          For more than two hours Sunday, lower Main Street was Mardi Gras, Independence Day and college week in Fort Lauderdale all thrown together as 150,000 Buffalonians celebrated the memory of the man who drove the snakes out of Ireland.

          They cheered, they smiled at each other and they all agreed that it was a great day for a St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

          “This is unbelievable,” said a former Canisius College ROTC marcher standing coat open in front of Buffalo Savings Bank. “The two years I was in it, it was a blizzard.”

          Unlike previous years of bluster and misery, this time the parade was blessed with windbreaker weather – cloudy in the upper 40s with no sign of the 90 percent chance of rain that was predicted.

          As a result, a nearly unbroken line of spectators assembled three to six deep along the route from Memorial Auditorium to Main and North streets. At the choicest viewing spot – Main Place Mall – they were 12 to 15 deep.

          “It’s the best crowd I’ve ever seen,” said lifelong St. Patrick’s celebrant Ed Masterson of Orchard Park Road, West Seneca, as once again he paraded a handsome Irish wolfhound named Blarney.

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HAPPIEST OF ALL was Rev. James E. McCarthy, pastor of Cheektowaga’s Most Holy Redeemer Church, who after 27 years of marching became the first priest to serve as grand marshal for the parade.

          Lining up 165 units behind Father McCarthy was no easy matter. Incoming fans for the Braves basketball game in the Aud dodged Shriners on motorized tricycles.

          “Where’s the Sixth Division?” yelled the driver of a late-arriving orange Jeep to a boy walking alone with a Fourth Division sign. The boy shrugged.

          But after the 2 p.m. start, the urge to march along was irresistible. Two resoundingly Irish gentlemen with lantern jaws and stout shillelaghs watched for a while near the Aud, then stepped in.

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THERE WERE clowns and majorettes, a kazoo band from the Locker Room Tavern, Royal Canadian Air Cadets from across the river, Keystone Kops from Depew, school groups and scouts, sheriff’s deputies on horseback with a golf cart riding clean-up behind them.

          The parade was dedicated to Blessed John Neumann, a Buffalo priest to be canonized in June. Winning float on the theme, “Food for the World,” was from Depew’s Our Lady of Blessed Sacrament Church.

          At the reviewing stand in front of One M&T Plaza, all units got warm, familiar greetings.

          “Here’s the Town of Tonawanda Irish-American Club,” Jerome Lyons reported on the PA. “We miss Mr. O’Brien from your group this year.”

* * *

ELSEWHERE, spectators pushed into the street, hurling quips at marchers to see if they’d hurl some back. Around taverns, wearing of the green seemed to be a license for drinking on the sidewalks, New Orleans style.

          “We’re very pleased,” said Michael J. McGillicuddy, president of the Irish-American Association of Erie County, which sponsored the parade. “When we brought the bus around afterwards, people didn’t want to leave.”

          Festivities didn’t end with the parade. Celebrants crowded into hundreds of taverns hung with shamrocks to quaff green beer and consume the traditional corned beef, boiled potatoes and cabbage.

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SOME OF THE MOST convivial celebrants were around the three bars at South Buffalo’s Irish Center, home of the sponsoring organization.

          In the second-floor lounge room, co-chairmen Mrs. Mary Brennan and Mrs. Evelyn O’Sullivan, both native Irish, gave the authentic touch to more than 300 dinners.

          For some, the Irish Center’s post-parade program was the highlight of the day. Among them were Mr. and Mrs. James Graham of Claude Drive, Cheektowaga.

          “No, I didn’t see the parade,” Mr. Graham said, taking a bite of cabbage. “What we like is the Irish music and dancing they have here. We came down at 2:30 to make sure we got a good table.”

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FOOTNOTE: In those days before MetroRail construction tore up Main Street, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade hadn’t yet moved over to broader horizons on Delaware Avenue. This one came a mere six weeks after the Blizzard of ’77, making it particularly joyous because it was like a civic declaration that the wintry ordeal was officially over. Thanks to what seemed like a meteorological miracle, the big snow, once piled to the tops of the parking meters, had melted into memory.