Buffalo, NY (WBEN) - Monday marks the 20th annual Dyngus Day parade in Buffalo. Organizers and participants say it's a far cry from what it was like in the mid 2000s.
It was about 25 years ago when Eddy Dobosiewicz says he started to notice that the area around the Broadway Market, Central Terminal area, which was once the second largest Polish colony in the world outside of Warsaw, was deteriorating. "It was being demolished right before our very eyes," says Dobosiewicz. "It was literally like watching the extinction of a civilization in real time, and no one was paying attention to it. No one was saying anything about it. No one was complaining about it. And I realized that the perception at that time was that it was a dangerous area, but the truth of the matter was that it was a poverty stricken and blight ridden area, and so I thought we need to change that perception."
At the time, he says Dyngus Day was an old fashioned thing grandparents did. "Young people weren't interested in it. They may have known about it to some degree. At least the Polish descendants of the residents in this area knew about it. But it wasn't cool. It wasn't hip. So that's all we did. We just tried to hip it up a little bit. We figured if we can get people to come in once a year and see that the area has potential. They can visit some of the neighborhood taverns, the friendly neighborhood taverns. They can visit any one of the handful of phenomenal, spectacular houses of worship."
He says there were about 25 participants in that first parade. There was one thing noticeably missing. "I couldn't even find a polka band. There's only a few local Polka bands left, and at that time, we weren't really bringing in out of town bands yet en masse, like we do now," says Dobosiewicz.
"The first band, the only band that we had in that first parade was the Party Squad. I don't know some rock and roll version of of the beer barrel folk or something. But it's grown considerably. This year, I think we're going to have about 150 different entries in the parade." He says what's remarkable about it is to see the amount of families that have taken it on as an annual project. "Every year, it keeps growing. More and more families pay tribute to their their family name, their ancestors. And, you know, they have banners with their family name on it. They have multiple generations on whatever floats that they make, they get into it as a family and decorate the float and really have a good time. And some of them have now been in numerous times for many years, but this year, we have more families than we've ever had before. I think this is going to be off the charts," adds Dobosiewicz.
Pete and Cindy Stelmach were among the first participants. "There probably was 10 floats when we first went there, and it was behind Broadway Market, and it lasted about 15 minutes. Now it's a couple hours," says Pete Stelmach.
The couple has a large monster truck to drive in the parade. Cindy says Pete was not alone. "Peter started this years ago with the Buffalo Streets Department. It was a union, and that's how we got started, also, and it was a lot of trucks with the Streets Department, when the unions were a big part of it, and they still are," adds Cindy.
Cindy jokes the event has gone out of control. "People are crazy with the squirt guns and the water. It's wonderful throwing the candy for the kids. Now they have the race that's new. So many of the surrounding area will have parties, which is great, so people can come down and decide where they want to go. And now it's also in Cheektowaga and Clarence. Tonawanda has the parade. So it's huge," she adds.
A 5K run is set for noon, with the parade at 5:30pm, followed by parties throughout Buffalo's Polonia district.
First parade lasted 15 minutes, says original participant; this one to last two hours
