One of the smaller parades in the city is the annual Cinco de Mayo parade along Central Park West. The parade is in honor of the famous Battle of Puebla in 1862 where Mexican troops were outnumbered 4000 to 8000 and still crushed the French Army that had been undefeated for over 50 years. It is not in celebration of Mexican Independence as few observers mentioned and of course I had to correct them. Ugghh.. This time around the celebration started off with a group of chinelos dancing around to live band music soon followed by the lovely Miss Cinco de Mayo on the live band float. A special treat came when an enthusiastic group of modern dancers tore it up on the way down to 96th St. where the parade ended. They were followed by a more traditional group of dancers with ornate costumes that really showed the crowd what a fun dance it can be. Closing out the short but fun parade were a much larger group of chinelos dancing until the music stopped. A few of them looked as though they could have sipped on a few Coronas to cool off after all that jumping around.
NYC Parade Life 
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