With Any Luck, You'll Find Free Parking at St. Patrick's Day Parade

If we're lucky, we'll follow in the footsteps of St. Patrick to a holiday parade Thursday that has become nearly a second Christmas for those Irish-Americans and non-Irish alike. 

With an event brought to St. Louis in 1984, the 27th annual Ancient Order of Hibernians St. Patrick’s Day Dogtown Parade kicks off at noon in Dogtown near the intersection of Tamm and Oakland avenues.

It's all part of a larger tradition nearly three centuries in the making. St. Patrick’s Day parades were held in the U.S. as early as 1737 in Boston and 1762 in New York to honor the Irish saint. 

Since 1984, the St. Louis area parade of green has grown by leaps and bounds from the initial 33 groups of clans and floats marching a little over a mile on Forsythe Boulevard in Clayton.

This year organizers prepare for an expected 95 groups to wind their way through Dogtown. 

Participants no doubt claiming Irish ancestry will be marching south on Tamm past St. James the Greater Church before eventually stopping at Manchester Avenue.

St. Louis' Roman Catholic Archbishop Robert Carlson will serve as the grand marshal in this year’s parade, leading numerous family clans, two schools of Irish dance, the hurling-swinging St. Louis Gaelic Athletic Club, a group honoring fallen St. Louis Police Officer Robert Stanze who was shot and killed by a suspect in 2000, and many others.

Parade organizers have adopted a new plan restricting parking in an effort to quell concerns from local residents and St. Louis officials.

“Every year we refine the parade,” organizer Jim Mohan said in a press release. “We’ve had cars double-parking and people blocked in. Emergency vehicles can’t get through. So we’re going to push the perimeter out a little further. We want to cut down on the number of cars flooding the area and lessen an irritant for local folks.”

Most residential streets in Dogtown will be blocked to non-residents on the morning of the parade. Access will be blocked from Hampton Avenue on the east, Kraft Street on the west.

Additional closures include Sproule, Gregg, Tamm, Dale and Mitchell avenues along with Graham Street on the south perimeter; streets running east from Kraft to Mitchell on the western perimeter; and Berthold and Clayton avenues on the northern perimeter. Oakland Avenue will also be closed to traffic at Hampton Ave. and vehicles traveling east at Fairmount Avenue. Wells Avenue in Forest park will have restrictions as well.

Safety concerns have caused spectators to be banned from viewing the parade on Tamm Avenue overpass and the prohibition of glass containers.

Mohan also warns celebrants to have a plan to get home safely should they indulge in too many green beverages. "Don’t depend on luck on March 17, have a plan before you celebrate,” Mohan said.

To find parking for the parade, the earlier you arrive, the better. Some businesses set up paid parking lots charging between $10 and $20 per vehicle. Other options include the south parking lot at the St. Louis Zoo, surface and garage parking areas at Forest Park Hospital, and the parking areas of Carpenter’s Hall and St. Louis Marketplace.

Erin go bragh!