The Procession of the Virgin
A procession Catholic New Yorkers of Peruvian Descent in New York
A procession Catholic New Yorkers of Peruvian Descent in New York
A friend of mine used to work on 52nd Street in New York. He worked at SIR studios, he also helped to do the sound for a great variety of bands all over the city. It happened a few times that we would be out, working with bands in the city, and, at the end of a show, we would have pack up our gear, and drive him to his job at SIR on 52nd. One day we arrived early in the morning on a Sunday. It must have been 6:30 or 7:oo in the morning. Instead of finding the street deserted as usual, we found it filled with Hispanic men and women, many dressed in Sunday best and some wearing religious gowns and robes. Many carried elaborately embroidered banners celebrating the Virgin, one man, a priest, carried a huge monstrance containing a bone of a saint. As I stood there, bleary eyed from a night of partying with rock musicians, they formed up into a sort of parade, finally hoisting up a lifesize statue of the Virgin, and walking very slowly and solemnly down the street, followed by a brass band which played a song alternately joyful and sad, moving from a sort of Spanish march to a Dirge. They seemed totally oblivious to the modern city around them, and appeared completely focused on following a route they had apparently used for decades, as many other New Yorkers stared at them in bewilderment. A strange moment of deliberate sacredness amid the messy profanity of New York.
