Hundreds of Halloween-enthused kids paraded around Williston Park and East Williston Saturday, Oct. 25, carrying on the villages’ decades-old Ragamuffin Parade tradition.
“We do this in part because of tradition, but also because this is how we meet our newest and youngest residents. That’s a lot of fun,” said East Williston Mayor Bonnie Parente, dressed as tiger. “Seeing the little kids in costumes is so fun.”
Roughly a dozen families with young children, including Trustee Rushi Vaidya and his son, dressed as Spiderman, took a short parade around the village hall before being treated to some candy.
“It’s small, but it communicates what our village is,” Parente said. “It’s particularly nice when our newest residents are here for the first time and get to see that.”
A few hours later in Williston Park, hundreds of kids showed off their Halloween spirit when they took to their village’s streets. The parade grew as it moved down Broad Street, swelling to pack the entire thoroughfare and spilling into Kelleher Field, where kids trick-or-treated with elected officials, including North Hempstead Supervisor Jen DeSena, who joined in the parade.
The village’s creativity was on full display, particularly demonstrated by two young boys dressed as Flintstones characters driving down the street in a recreated Flintmobile, accompanied by their dog dressed as Dino.
“We do this every year because this is what makes a community strong,” said Williston Park Mayor Paul Ehrbar, dressed as a sheriff. “We’re a very tight community. We want to make sure we keep the community involved and do things that the community is looking forward to.”
The tradition is truly longstanding. “Ragamuffin” festivities sprouted in New York City and go back to the 1870s. They were a predecessor of today’s Halloween. Initially held on Thanksgiving, Ragamuffin Day involved children “dressing up” as if they were homeless and going door to door asking for candy or money. As years passed, kids also frequently dressed as sailors and Disney characters.
Kids dressing as if they were homeless and Ragamuffin Day eventually fizzled out, but not without targeted discouragement: Organizations began holding Thanksgiving Day parades to dampen Ragamuffin Day and The New York Times published several pieces pushing for the practice to end, saying that children were annoying adults.
The Willistons are part of a very short list of communities that continue to hold Ragamuffin parades as a homage to the centuries-old tradition, though the kids parading through the streets are wearing Halloween – not begging – costumes and the parade, like others that have continued, has shifted to coincide with Halloween, not Thanksgiving.
Both village mayors plan to continue the tradition into next year and beyond.
