NYC West Indian Day Parade 2024: Times, route, street closures and more

2024 West Indian Parade celebration

The world's largest celebration of Caribbean culture took over the Eastern Parkway on Monday. More than one million people made their way to Brooklyn for the West Indian American Parade. FOX 5 NY's Lisa Evers has all the sights and sounds from the parade route.

NEW YORK CITY - The West Indian American Day Parade 2024 kicked off Monday in NYC, with thousands of revelers dancing and marching along Brooklyn's Eastern Parkway in one of the world’s largest celebrations of Caribbean culture.

JUMP TO: LIST OF COUNTRIES | STREET CLOSURES

Now in its 57th year, the annual Labor Day event turns the borough’s Eastern Parkway into a kaleidoscope of feather-covered costumes and colorful flags as participants make their way down the thoroughfare alongside floats stacked high with speakers playing soca and reggae music.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 05: Revelers participate in the annual West Indian Day parade in Brooklyn. The parade follows the Caribbean street carnival, J'ouvert, which draws tens of thousands of costumed celebrants. (Photo by Alexi Rosenfeld/Gett

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The event has its roots in more traditionally timed, pre-Lent Carnival celebrations started by a Trinidadian immigrant in Manhattan around a century ago, according to the organizers. The festivities were moved to the warmer time of year in the 1940s.

Here's everything you need to know about the parade, including how to get to it and street closures in the area.

West Indian Day Parade start time

The parade was from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

West Indian Day Parade location

The parade routinely attracts huge crowds, who line the almost 2-mile route that runs from Crown Heights to the Brooklyn Museum.

What is the West Indian Day Parade NYC 2024?

The parade consists of a competition for the best masquerade costume.

Groups of paradegoers known as mas bands are judged based on rules and regulations from Trinidad and Tobago, the home of Carnival.

West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn

Despite a few incidents, the West Indian American Day Parade stepped off in style in Brooklyn on Monday, with brightly colored costumes, steel bands, flag waving and street dancing.

Over a million participated in the parade and the events leading up, according to organizers.

List of West Indian countries

The parade features hundreds of lavish costumes, dancers and music representing the various countries that make up the West Indies. The West Indies consists of 13 island countries and territories surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.

Anguilla
Antigua Barbuda Montserrat
Aruba
Barbados
Bermuda
Bonaire
British Virgin Islands
Cuba
Curaçao
Dominica
Dominican Republic
Grenada
Guadeloupe
Haiti
Jamaica
Martinique
Puerto Rico
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Sint Maarten
The Bahamas
Trinidad and Tobago
Turks and Caicos Islands
US Virgin Islands

How to get to the parade

On-site parking is available in a lot behind the Museum, off Washington Avenue.

Women are getting ready to participate in the West Indian American Day Parade marking the Labour Day in Brooklyn, Borough of New York City on September 04, 2023. (Photo by Leonardo Munoz / AFP) (Photo by LEONARDO MUNOZ/AFP via Getty Images)

During normal service, take the 2/3 to Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum, which is a wheelchair accessible station.

Transfer to 2/3 from 4/5 (at Nevins Street) and B, D, Q, N, R, and LIRR (at Atlantic Terminal-Barclays Center).