St. Pat’s Day Downtown: Still Some Greening to Do

Even Shirley Newman, who considers herself the ultimate parade fan, had to admit Saturday that Los Angeles has a way to go before the city perfects its St. Patrick’s Day parade.

Standing at the corner of Spring and 5th streets in downtown Los Angeles, Newman observed that the horses in the parade weren’t wearing green, the mounted police weren’t wearing green, the firefighters and paramedics riding a fire truck weren’t wearing green. Not even state Sen. Art Torres, who waved to spectators from a convertible car, was wearing green.

There wasn’t enough music, Newman said, and the turnout was light.

Best Yet to Come

“This can’t compare with New York,” said Newman, dressed from head to toe in green. “But this is just getting off the ground in Los Angeles. Give us a couple of years and we’ll surpass everybody.”

Newman, from Century City, joined a crowd of about 7,000 spectators who lined Spring Street between 9th Street and City Hall to view the second annual--and third-ever--St. Patrick’s Day parade in downtown Los Angeles.

Organizers speculated that attendance, which was estimated last year to be 10,000, may have been hurt by competing parades Saturday in Pasadena and Redondo Beach and a fourth--billed as a star-studded event--planned for noon today at Wilshire and Little Santa Monica boulevards in Beverly Hills. Police said about 10,000 spectators lined the parade route in Pasadena and about 4,000 in Redondo Beach.

The downtown parade, sponsored by Spring Street merchants, featured five floats, a few marching bands and dozens of antique MG sports cars. Participating groups included the Downtown Women’s Center, the Retirement Housing Foundation and Ireland’s 32 pub from Van Nuys.

Not Many Names

But because organizers of the Beverly Hills parade had booked a long list of celebrities, the downtown event was short on well-known names.

KABC radio personalities Ken Minyard and Bob Arthur served as grand marshals and were joined by two parade queens, Sheila Cleary of Burbank and soap opera actress Karen Kelly. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and City Councilman Gilbert Lindsay also attended the event.

The biggest ovation went to a veteran group of parade marchers--the Synchronized Briefcase Drill Team, a collection of unsmiling businessmen and women wearing pinstripe suits who perform each year in Pasadena’s Doo-Dah Parade, a spoof of the city’s famed Rose Parade.

“I’ve wanted to see that parade forever,” Newman said.

Festivities continued throughout the afternoon at a street fair at Spring and 5th streets which featured stuffed potatoes, corned beef and cabbage, egg rolls, chicken teriyaki, crafts and an Irish stew cook-off.