A Proud Swirl of Sound and Spectacle

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From The New York Times:

 

The parade could be seen and heard several blocks away from Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, where determined visitors armed with folding chairs and coolers had been lining the route since early Sunday morning. Red, white and blue flags fluttered like capes from the backs of people heading toward Bryant Park. Salsa music pumped from the floats and coursed through the streets. Cheers rose above the roar of Midtown traffic.

They came for the start-of-summer celebration that is the National Puerto Rican Day Parade, as large and festive as ever as it made its way up Fifth Avenue. But if it seemed unchanged in the essentials, this year’s parade wore a slightly more serious attitude, coming just four months after aย new board took overย after revelations of financial mismanagement and rising concern that the parade’s corporate sponsorships had turned a cherished cultural celebration into a commercial spectacle.
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