Memorial Day Parade to March Through Northeast Queens on May 27

The 86th annual Little Neck Douglaston Memorial Day Parade will wind its way through northeast Queens on May 27.   

The parade, which is considered the largest Memorial Day march in the nation, will kick off at 2 p.m. on Jayson Avenue at Northern Boulevard in Great Neck and culminate at Douglaston’s St. Anastasia Parish.   

An art and essay awards contest that precedes the parade each year will be held on May 24 in Father Smith Hall at St. Anastasia.    
This year’s grand prize winner was P.S. 221’s Angie Lam, who created a picture depicting the Statue of Liberty, a soldier and an eagle with “God Bless America” scrolled along the bottom of the drawing.   

On the day of the march, an interfaith service will be held at 10 a.m. at the Community Church of Little Neck and a wreath laying ceremony will begin at 11 a.m. at Alameda Avenue and Northern Boulevard in Douglaston.   

This year’s parade is dedicated to soldiers who served in the Vietnam War as this year marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the war and the 40th anniversary of its end.   

The grand marshal for the parade will be the 77th Sustainment Brigade, which is a unit of the U.S. Army that once served with distinction in the first two World Wars. The brigade was previously headquartered at Fort Totten, but moved to Fort Dix, N.J. in 2008.   

The parade’s honorary grand marshals include Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Queens Borough President Helen Marshall.   

For more information on the march, visit the Little Neck Douglaston Memorial Day Parade website.