Here are more photos from June 6th 2010. These exclusively depict the actual official parade and the Festival del Coqui which followed.

I mention this because there has been confusion over where the real parade took place.The official parade route began on Wethersfield Avenue and continued on Main Street. It did not go on Franklin Avenue or Park Street.

The burnouts and off the wall behavior that one would expect at the Mardi Gras or perhaps following a day-long drinking binge after St. Patrick’s Day were essentially absent from the real parade. All of the evening photos and videos in the previous post were taken at “spontaneous parades” which happen every year but are not part of the official Greater Hartford Puerto Rican Day Parade. From the images, you can see a huge demographic difference between the two — one features a mix of people in age range, personality, and conduct. The other features mostly teens, and young adults who are behaving boisterously. While Park Street (where the evening faux parade occurred) is always vibrant, it is usually not a hotbed of crazier-than-normal automobile activity.

With that said, I don’t mind a little controlled chaos two days out of the year, just so long as nobody gets hurt. There have been times when parades and other large public gatherings have been tainted by violence. As far as I know, Sunday’s parade was not one of them.

You can view more photos from the parade on my Photobucket page.