{"id":274503,"date":"2026-06-22T21:53:57","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T21:53:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/274503\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T21:53:57","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T21:53:57","slug":"brooklyn-celebrates-life-birthdays-and-coney-island-at-44th-annual-mermaid-parade-brooklyn-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/274503\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn celebrates life, birthdays and Coney Island at 44th annual Mermaid Parade \u2022 Brooklyn Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gela Buchbinder celebrated her 101st birthday on Saturday as only a true Brooklynite could: by marching in the annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade.\n<\/p>\n

Dressed in a hand-crocheted mermaid costume she made herself, Gela eschewed a wheelchair made to look like a throne and walked down the boardwalk, waving to scores of newly-adoring fans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She was one of thousands of glittering mermaids and sometimes-scandalous sea creatures who flocked to the People\u2019s Playground for the 44th annual Mermaid Parade<\/a>, a celebration of the neighborhood and its people.<\/p>\n

\"gelaGela Buchbinder celebrated her 101st birthday at the parade. Photo by Erica Price \"mermaidThe crowds went wild for Gela.Photo by Erica Price<\/p>\n

The idea to celebrate at the parade came from Gela\u2019s granddaughter, Sarah. For the last few years, the family has thrown big celebrations at her home in New Jersey. After her blowout 100th birthday party last year, Sarah told her, \u201cGrandma, I love you, I\u2019m so glad I could do this for you, but for your 101st, you\u2019re going to be a mermaid,\u201d she told Brooklyn Paper.<\/p>\n

It just so happened that this year\u2019s parade was scheduled for June 20, the same day as Gela\u2019s birthday.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cShe agreed to go along with this crazy idea, having absolutely no idea what it entailed,\u201d Sarah said.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Gela makes all her own clothes, Sarah said, and crocheted her blue-and-green mermaid outfit herself. Sarah created a sequined green mermaid tail and shell top for herself and marched along with her grandma, accompanied by her father \u2014 Gela\u2019s son \u2014 and a few close friends.<\/p>\n

\"mermaidGela was accompanied by her granddaughter Sarah (right) and other family members. Photo by Erica Price<\/p>\n

When they set off on the route, Gela was unsure, Sarah said. None of them knew quite what to expect from participating in the parade for the first time. But they were immediately flooded with cheers and attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we went on, you could see she just felt more confident,\u201d Sarah said. \u201cShe was blowing kisses, she was dancing and she was waving, and people were just loving it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gela still walks a mile a day, lives independently and takes exercise classes, Sarah said. They fashioned the royal wheelchair just in case.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made the wheelchair just because it\u2019s hot and it\u2019s long and I wanted her to be comfortable, and she wanted none of it, she wanted to stand up and wave to the crowd,\u201d Sarah said.<\/p>\n

\"mermaidThousands of marchers and spectators filled the streets and boardwalk. Photo by Erica Price \"mermaidThousands of mermaids and sea creatures filled the streets of Coney Island for the parade.Photo by Erica Price<\/p>\n

Gela is a \u201cpowerhouse and a survivor,\u201d Sarah said. Born in Poland, she is a Holocaust survivor who moved to Brooklyn with her son and husband after the war and lived there for 30 years before relocating to New Jersey.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before the parade, as the family waited in the shade in front of a local stop, dozens of paradegoers approached to tell Gela she was an inspiration and wish her a happy birthday, Sarah said, moving Gela to tears.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the most fulfilling moment of my life, seeing her just eating up the spotlight and seeing everyone just be so inspired and loving, calling her a diva and an icon. It was so great. I am just in awe of how lucky I am,\u201d Sarah said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

New Yorkers celebrate life, friends at the Mermaid Parade<\/p>\n

What was Gela\u2019s first Mermaid Parade was Alix Michel\u2019s 25th.\n<\/p>\n

The Queens native said she can\u2019t remember how she and her friends started attending the parade \u2013 or why they started dressing up and taking part a few years later. The size of the group has waxed and waned over the years as people moved away, or took up new responsibilities related to their families or careers, Michel said, but they are as passionate as ever.<\/p>\n

This year, Michel\u2019s group of ten chose the theme \u201cZiggy Starfish,\u201d an ode to David Bowie (or, as she said, the thematically-appropriate David Buoy.) They donned spiky red wigs and the iconic jagged red face paint Bowie wore on the \u201cZiggy Stardust\u201d album cover and danced down the parade route.<\/p>\n

\"davidAlix Michele and her friends dressed up in homage to David Bowie.Photo by Erica Price \"stardustOne of the Bowies applying their makeup before the parade. Photo by Erica Price<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have professional performers that put together the dance routine,\u201d Michel said. \u201cWe have people that are in the music industry that help to edit the sound so it\u2019s pretty seamless \u2026 We have a bunch of talented people in our group. I\u2019m thankful every day that I get to hang out with these people, because they are so much cooler than me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three of her friends flew in from California this year, she said, and the group had even more people supporting them along the way. Of the 25 years they\u2019ve been attending, this year was one of the best, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe joy in all of the picture is real. It\u2019s is a joy to be a part of it,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cThe Van Wyck is finished, the Knicks are the champs, and we did the Mermaid Parade, you know what I mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

Michel moved away from the city and then returned, and loves to support Coney Island and all of its small businesses and artists. Austin, Texas, has the slogan \u201cKeep Austin Weird,\u201d she said, but she\u2019s more concerned with \u201ckeeping New York, New York.\u201d The Mermaid Parade is a big part of that.<\/p>\n

\"mermaidAn aquatic stiltwalker paraded down Surf Avenue. Photo by Erica Price \"adamAdam Rinn, artistic director of Coney Island USA (center) marched down the parade route. Photo by Erica Price<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York is a city that just welcomes everyone, and that\u2019s part of its charm and its joy, and all of the cultures that, new or established, people that come here,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a joy to celebrate everything that is part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarahrose Petrick has also felt welcomed by the parade.\n<\/p>\n

A sculptor who works in TV and film, Petrick has been dressing up for the parade for a few years, she said. She used to dress up with her partner, she said. Two years ago, she had to take a break while being treated for cancer, and she and her partner broke up.<\/p>\n

\"kidsLittle mermaids watched the procession go by. Photo by Erica Price<\/p>\n

\u201cThe following year \u2026\u00a0 because my ex and I had broken up, [and] I didn\u2019t have the person I usually go with, I started making these big kind of costumes that were fun and kind of crazy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Last year<\/a>, Petrick dressed up as a giant seagull head with little legs and a cigarette in its beak, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This year, she \u2014 along with friends Alex Hollenbach and Jim Tozzi \u2014 used foam and rubber to create a giant container of fries from Nathan\u2019s \u2014 with a twist. Petrick hates ketchup, she said, and loves horror movies, including the classic \u201cCarrrie,\u201d which is turning 50 this year.<\/p>\n

So she created a ketchup bottle that dangled above her head, pouring glittering fake ketchup onto the fries like the pig\u2019s blood from the film.\u00a0
\n\"frenchSarahrose Petrick crafted a foam-and-rubber French fry costume. Photo by Erica Price\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea of pig\u2019s blood being ketchup is pretty funny, because I hate it so much,\u201d she laughed.<\/p>\n

Everyone wanted photos, Petrick said, and she had to put the 50-pound costume on and off repeatedly as she waited for her turn to march. Once she was on the route, she said, the crowd cheered for her<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like the Beatles, people were like, screaming for it,\u201d she said. She had made little resin French fries to hand out along the route.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\"mermaidParticipants said the parade is welcoming to all, and a critical part of living in New York City. Photo by Erica Price \"mermaidOne paradegoer dressed up as a giant roach.Photo by Erica Price<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s march felt a little different, she said.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like there was a lot of people who stepped out of their comfort zone and decided to go alone, and decided to figure out a costume and be there by themselves, even though it was intimidating,\u201d Petrick said.<\/p>\n

She attended solo for the first time in 2025, after her breakup, her way of saying \u201clife goes on, you got to live it,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are very welcoming to that, they will make you feel comfortable, and not weird,\u201d she added. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of events that happen where you feel excluded if you don\u2019t know anybody \u2026 This is such a great community. You can go alone and people will help you apply your sunscreen and make sure your wig is on and all that stuff, and we were doing that for people, and people were doing that for each other.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gela Buchbinder celebrated her 101st birthday on Saturday as only a true Brooklynite could: by marching in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[14473,105617,105618,4982,2571,98,100,99,119,14480,105619,68330,9,24,12,370,63,1365,105620,105621,19459,11304],"class_list":["post-274503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-adam-rinn","tag-alix-michel","tag-art-parade","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-entertainment","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-coney-island","tag-coney-island-usa","tag-gela-buchbinder","tag-mermaid-parade","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-nyc","tag-parade","tag-sarah-bunchbinder","tag-sarahrose-petrick","tag-southern-brooklyn","tag-summer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}