You drunken idiots. All 300,000 of you.
The party is over.
The organizers of the South Side Irish St. Patrick's Day Parade on Western Avenue, in Chicago IL, said they would no longer hold the event "in its present form."
Mary Beth Sheehan, a spokeswoman for the parade, said the decision was not the result of any specific incident. She said, "It's a cumulative thing. We have a small, wonderful neighborhood here. Mashing 300,000 people in here is a little too much for this neighborhood."
Mary Beth Sheehan, a spokeswoman for the parade, said the decision was not the result of any specific incident. She said, "It's a cumulative thing. We have a small, wonderful neighborhood here. Mashing 300,000 people in here is a little too much for this neighborhood."
The parade is a "victim of its own success."
Okay look, I probably agree that this parade has gotten 'a wee bit' out of hand. Seeing 500 people run behind a building to pee on it at any one given moment was kind of surreal. Yeah, I was number 42 in that crowd.
Okay look, I probably agree that this parade has gotten 'a wee bit' out of hand. Seeing 500 people run behind a building to pee on it at any one given moment was kind of surreal. Yeah, I was number 42 in that crowd.
Having your friends park a car on the parade route a couple days in advance, loaded to the gills with beer... yeah, but that's part of the experience.
Having to dry out for about ten hours after a twenty minute parade - yeah, that's awesome.
Now it's gone.
Makers of Oui Oui Port-a-potties and the nice folks who own pubs on Western are going to need city bail out money or something.
On the positive note, there's a little baby-kid's Irish parade on Northwest Highway...
(which, is already twenty times as large as when the South Side parade started in 1979. The original was seventeen kids and a red wagon with one of the kids dressed up as St. Pat.)
Feel free to share your favorite South Side Irish Parade memories -- however few of them you have.
On the positive note, there's a little baby-kid's Irish parade on Northwest Highway...
(which, is already twenty times as large as when the South Side parade started in 1979. The original was seventeen kids and a red wagon with one of the kids dressed up as St. Pat.)
Feel free to share your favorite South Side Irish Parade memories -- however few of them you have.
More like some North-Sider frat boy pays $30 to take a bus down to the south-side and so he can pay another $20 to get into Cork & Kerry's to then puke his JagerBomb on his girlfriend's Cubs jersey that she wore to the south-side Irish parade to 'show them'.
ReplyDeleteI used to go to this parade all through the 80's and 90's (I think I went for the first time with my parents in 1981) and back in the 80's it was a lot of fun for a kid. It wasn't until the northsiders started to arrive en masse in their chartered buses that it started to get out of hand.
Of course there was always partying and drinking of which I often took part in, especially on the West side of Western (I have fond memories of sneaking over to that side of the street and sneaking a few drinks when I was a teenager), but it was a much smaller affair back then with much less puking on ones shoes. Over the years it ceased to be a fun south-side event for families and a few unruly drunkards on 'the other side of the street' to a full-on frat party.
I went to the parade this year, and honestly did not enjoy myself that much despite the lovely weather, it was just way too much, and I'm glad that I didn't bring my niece and nephew this year as even the family side of Western seemed to be overrun with staggering, puking, urinating drunkards.
Damn Trixies and Chads... let's add "getting the South Side Irish Parade cancelled" to the list of things that are your damned fault. You're the scourge of the city.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why you need to drive your Jettas alone every morning down Lake Shore Drive, backing it up all the way from Lawrence into the Loop. You live in LINCOLN PARK, people, not Naperville or Orland Park. Take the El or ride the bus.
Stop vomiting all over the Red Line at bar closing time. After you get off at Fullerton or Belmont, we're trapped with your mess all the way up to Howard or down to 95th.
Stay out of Wicker Park. It's your fault Filter Cafe became a bank and Damen Avenue between North and the Kennedy became a chichi shopping mall.
You travel in packs. Large, loud, obnoxious packs. I can hardly go anywhere on the North Side without hearing your screechy voices (the ones from Michigan are the worst) or waiting in line behind a giggling group of you. This is especially annoying on Saturdays and Sundays, when you and "the girls" crowd every restaurant within a five-mile radius of Lincoln Park for the revolting ritual known as "brunch."
When you're in a couple, why do you insist on talking in baby talk, slobbering all over each other, and walking REALLY slowly everywhere you go? Get over yourselves.
Once again, YOU LIVE IN LINCOLN PARK. You don't need a car. It's your fault there's never anywhere to park.
Whole Foods on North and Sheffield = hell on earth. It's like shopping in a bourgeois, yuppified version of East Germany circa 1969, only with longer lines. See above comment about traveling in packs.
/Chicago resident 2002-2008 (Hyde Park, then Andersonville)