New York Marks Fourth With Parade of Ships : Holiday: Celebrations of Independence Day range from commemorating Columbus’ voyage to concerts, parades, barbecues, food festival.

A sea of ships floated by the Statue of Liberty on Saturday as New York turned the Fourth of July celebration from a traditional barbecue into a massive spectacle commemorating Columbus’ voyage to America.

More than 1 million people crammed Lower Manhattan for a glimpse of more than 250 ships taking part in the parade up the Hudson River. The 34 tall ships--full-riggers, brigs and barks--from 28 countries led the flotilla.

“These old ships sail like swans up the Hudson,” said former CBS newscaster and sailor Walter Cronkite, who played host to about 350 invited guests, including Crown Prince Felipe of Spain and New York Mayor David N. Dinkins at Governors Island.

The parade of ships began at the island, which faces not only the Statue of Liberty, but also Ellis Island, where thousands of America’s immigrants first landed.

Full-scale replicas of the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, the ships Columbus sailed on his voyage to what would become the New World, cruised past Governors Island. They anchored by the Statue of Liberty and did not take part in the parade because the tall ships would dwarf them.

The Santa Maria, the longest of the three vessels, is only 97 feet, about one-fourth the size of the longest tall ship.

The end of the Cold War added four tall ships--from Russia, Ukraine, Latvia and Estonia. Latvia’s 399-foot Sedov, a sailing cargo ship built in Germany in 1921, was the largest vessel in the parade.

Meanwhile, cold and rain did not deter some Bostonians from arriving at the Charles River Esplanade as early as 6 a.m. for the annual Independence Day night fireworks and concert by the Boston Pops. By midday, several thousand had gathered.

And rain that occasionally escalated to a downpour did not stop the country’s oldest continuous Independence Day parade in Bristol, R. I., featuring 40 floats, 29 bands and about 4,000 marchers on a 3.8-mile route.

Seventeen abortion rights advocates were arrested Saturday at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia when they sat down around the Liberty Bell and refused to leave.

About 200 people had gathered to protest last week’s Supreme Court decision upholding most of a restrictive Pennsylvania abortion law.

Food was the main topic at the Pig in the Park festival in Meridian, Miss. Most competitors for the barbecue cookout stayed up all night Friday to decorate tables and prepare side foods, besides cutting, turning and tasting the meat.

The annual Taste of Chicago food festival was expected to draw nearly 2.5 million people by the time its nine-day run finished today. Dishes ranged from all-American hot dogs and sweet corn to Ethiopian spiced lamb.

On a slightly smaller scale, a group called We The People held its second “Mother of All Bake Sales” in Boulder, Colo., to raise money to pay off the national debt. After their first sale, in February, the group mailed a check for $263.18 to the U.S. Treasury. They got no thank-you.

Credit cards were not accepted. “That’s what got us into this mess in the first place,” said organizer Wendy Wharton.

Some Fourth of July celebrations, however, got out of hand.

Fireworks shot off by youths was considered one possibility as the cause of a four-alarm fire that destroyed an old, abandoned warehouse in Seattle. And in Pennsylvania, a 10-year-old boy bled to death Friday after shrapnel from a homemade firecracker struck him in the neck.