The Dance Parade

New York City's annual Dance Parade (2009), so proclaimed by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, came down Broadway and passed Union Square last Saturday.  This year there were 5,291 dancers in 60 dance styles from Algerian to Zydeco.   I kept my eye on the belly dancers.

I worried that Fatima from Astoria would be in the parade still nursing a grudge—awhile back, Tasting Table NYC had proclaimed a new "hottest belly in town": lamb bacon—and I feared she might hold my sheep responsible for such disrespect and try to get even by terrorizing my customers with her "nihilistic belly rampage" in and around the stand.  Stranger things have happened in Union Square.

In 1916 anarchist Emma Goldman rallied a crowd of garment workers for birth control in the North Plaza of the Square, long set aside for political gatherings, and now where Greenmarket farmers unpack their produce 4 days a week. 

Behind Emma, in the very rear of the photo, you can see the Decker Building (2nd from the left) where, in the 70's, Andy Warhol made art inspired by tomato soup cans in The Factory which was located on the 6th floor.  The building is directly across the street (which the dancers paraded down) from where I set up my stand on Saturdays.  Ghosts are everywhere in Union Square.