{"id":357965,"date":"2026-09-27T04:06:54","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T04:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/357965\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T04:06:54","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T04:06:54","slug":"60-years-of-ragamuffin-tradition-continues-in-bay-ridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/357965\/","title":{"rendered":"60 Years of Ragamuffin: Tradition Continues in Bay Ridge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"\"Children dressed in homemade, ragged-style costumes take part in the 1978 Ragamuffin Parade, reflecting the old Ragamuffin tradition that inspired Bay Ridge\u2019s celebration. (Photo: Courtesy of Allison Greaker\/Ragamuffin Parade Committee)<\/p>\n

BAY RIDGE \u2014 Sixteen-year-old Korinna Vagelatos has watched the Ragamuffin Parade<\/a> since she was a little girl growing up in Bay Ridge. However, she\u2019s never actually marched in it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s about to change.<\/p>\n

On Oct. 3, the Xaverian High School<\/a> junior and her classmate, senior Marc Hindy, will step onto Third Avenue as members of Ragamuffin\u2019s inaugural class of junior marshals, introduced specially for the parade\u2019s 60th anniversary.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s what we should, as adults, be really proud of \u2014 that there are kids that give back to the community,\u201d said Allison Greaker, president of the 2026 Ragamuffin Committee. \u201cAt some point, as adults, we realize that volunteerism is so important to our wellness, but to find kids that realize it too, and that\u2019s how they were brought up, it\u2019s the essence of the Ragamuffin Parade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Korinna started a book club for Xaverian\u2019s Genesis middle school students, volunteers at the Holy Cross Outreach Center, and is an award-winning senior scout.<\/p>\n

Marc founded the Active Minds program at the Bay Ridge Center to connect local youth with seniors through activities designed to stimulate cognitive function and delay dementia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s always very important to give back to people, but especially the people who helped you and where you\u2019re from,\u201d Korinna said. \u201cSo, when I get to help Bay Ridge and continue supporting it in any way I can, like through the Ragamuffin Parade in years to come, I will always take the opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Photos: Courtesy of Ragamuffin Parade Committee, Ed Wilkinson)<\/p>\n

The tradition the students will help lead this year began six decades ago with a Catholic priest and a Bay Ridge resident looking to revive an old New York custom.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Our Lady of Angels: 125 Years of Keeping the Faith in Bay Ridge<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1966, Father James McKenna of Our Lady of Angels Church and Bay Ridge resident Cliff Scanlon founded the parade as a small parish event, drawing inspiration from the old Ragamuffin Day tradition, when children dressed in ragged, oversized clothing and wandered the streets asking neighbors and passersby for pennies, treats, or small gifts. Within just a few years, Ragamuffin became a major Bay Ridge event, and by 1972, approximately 6,000 children marched as an estimated 35,000 spectators lined the route.<\/p>\n

Sixty years after the parade began at Our Lady of Angels, the parish will return to the spotlight as the Grand Marshal of this year\u2019s anniversary celebration.<\/p>\n

For Father Kevin Abels, pastor of Our Lady of Angels, the honor recognizes not only the parish\u2019s place in Ragamuffin history, but its continuing role in the community \u2014 despite changes the neighborhood has seen since the \u201960s.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Ragamuffin] speaks to the heart of the kind of people that we have willing to support the neighborhood and to bring the faith out into the neighborhood,\u201d he said. \u201cThe parade is an opportunity for us to kind of, in our diversity and the changing demographics, hold on to something that gave so much life in the past. We\u2019re kind of building on that for the present and the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

That evolution is visible each year, as the parade\u2019s Catholic roots now mingle with the many schools, families and community organizations that call Bay Ridge home.<\/p>\n

Tablet Editor Emeritus Ed Wilkinson has watched and photographed that mix for years since moving to the neighborhood in the 1990s. His own son even joined the tradition as a child, marching one year as a bumblebee and another as a firefighter.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody is one, and we all march together \u2014 public schools, Catholic schools, organizations,\u201d Wilkinson said. \u201cEverybody\u2019s got their banner. To me, that catches the spirit of the event.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Greaker, those six decades are more than old photographs and parade statistics.<\/p>\n

As a child in Bay Ridge in the 1970s, she was among the costumed kids marching down Third Avenue. One year, her mother transformed her into Mr. Peanut, fashioning a life-size peanut costume from cardboard and completing it with a top hat and monocle. Greaker believes the homemade creation even won her a bicycle.<\/p>\n

By the time she was a teenager, Greaker had gone from marching in the parade to volunteering for it. She continued helping through college before moving to Manhattan. But Ragamuffin eventually drew her back in. After returning to Bay Ridge in 2014, Greaker joined the committee for its 50th anniversary in 2016. A decade later, she is its president as the parade marks another milestone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ragamuffin Parade is about kids marching with their parents, making costumes,\u201d Greaker said. \u201cIt\u2019s a tradition in Bay Ridge that brings the community together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greaker says remembering Ragamuffin\u2019s age has never been difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m as old as the parade,\u201d she said with a laugh. \u201cThat\u2019s how I remember how old the parade is.\u201d<\/p>\n

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