NYC Gay Pride Parade 2022 dates, times, route and restrictions
New York City’s Pride celebration is back for 2022 with a bumper 12-hour parade that covers some key locations in the history of gay rights activism.
Last year the New York City Pride celebrations were a largely virtual affair, with pandemic restrictions preventing large crowds of people gathering. However this year things are back to normal with huge events taking place across the city.
The street festival, Pride Fest, will be taking place throughout the weekend, but it is the Pride March which draws the biggest crowds.
This year the NYC Pride Parade will begin at noon on Sunday, 26 June, and is expected to last for about 12 hours. If you can’t be there to witness the spectacle but want to follow along at home, the parade will be broadcast on ABC-7.
Where will the NYC Pride Parade take place?
The NYC Pride celebrations are some of the biggest and most elaborate of any in the world, fitting considering that many of the gay rights movements seen today can trace their roots back to 1960s New York.
The Pride Parade 2022 will begin on 25th Street and 5th Avenue, before moving south on 5th Avenue and west along 8th Street. The parade will then cross 6th Avenue before continuing along Christopher Street, passing the Stonewall National Monument. From there the parade will turn north on 7th Avenue and end up on 16th Street and 7th Avenue.
The 12-hour parade will also be streamed on NYC Pride’s Facebook and YouTube channels, from 3pm (ET) on 26 June. This year’s Grand Marshalls will be Ts Madison (influencer), Punkie Johnson (comedian), Schuyler Bailar (athlete), Dominique Morgan (activist) and Chase Strangio (advocate).
What are the origins of the NYC Pride Parade?
This year’s event will be the 53rd Pride Parade in New York City, and many veterans of the half-century-long tradition are expected to be in attendance for the 2022 edition. The origins of a coordinated gay rights movement in the United States is generally acknowledged to have come from the Stonewall riots of 1969.
One year later, in 1970, local bookshop owner Craig Rodwell organised a one-year anniversary march to mark the date. Initially the parade consisted of just a couple of hundred people, but as they marched through the streets the numbers grew.
Gay rights activist Jerry Hoose, who was there for the first edition of the parade, told TimeOut: “I always say that gay liberation was conceived at Stonewall in 1969 and was born at that first march.”