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LBTQIA+ group GayRidge to host Bay Ridge’s first official ‘Pride’ event

Tree of Life with Pride Flag
A Pride flag on the “Tree of Life” in Owl’s Head Park, where GayRidge will host the neighborhood’s first official Pride Month event on June 5.
GayRidge

Bay Ridge will play host to its first official Pride event this June in celebration of southern Brooklyn’s burgeoning LGBTQIA+ community.

“GayRidge Pride” — a free event open to all age groups — will take place on Sunday, June 5 at Owl’s Head Park from noon to 5 pm. There, families of all ages and from all walks of life can enjoy a picnic, live music, drag story time, games, a queer pet march, an art show and crafts.

The event will be hosted by a southern Brooklyn LGBTQIA+ group of the same name, which was formed two years ago and has since hosted a number of events in the neighborhood.

In the past year alone, GayRidge has seen its Facebook group membership skyrocket, so the group decided to better connect its community to resources by launching a website, gayridge.org, and scheduling the neighborhood’s first-ever Pride event at the start of Pride Month, when LGBTQIA+ events are being held across the city. 

“In the last year, the GayRidge Facebook group has more than doubled,” said the group’s co-admin, McKenzie Keating. “Given this momentum, we decided as a group that the best way we could connect and support our South Brooklyn LGBTQIA+ community this year was to launch a website (gayridge.org) and host Bay Ridge’s first ever Pride Day.”

Though GayRidge is not yet an official non-profit (founding members say they aim to become one), they are accepting donations on GoFundMe to pay the Pride event’s volunteers and talent, which will be split equally among those who helped and the performers.

The group will also be accepting donations on the day of the event, in cash and via Venmo, which will will help fund the family-friendly get-together, where organizers hope to drive home their mission of helping connect queer people with queer allies.

“Our member-volunteers are so creative and dedicated,” said co-admin Laura Albert in a statement. “We’re really proud of the Pride day we’ve created and we’re looking forward to welcoming everyone to ‘Gay Ridge’ on the first Sunday in June.”

In the event of rain on June 5, GayRidge will be postponed to June 12.

The Bay Ridge event will serve as one of many boroughwide precursors to the 2022 Brooklyn Pride Festival and Parade, taking place on Saturday, June 11 on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope.

The first Pride march in New York City was held on June 28, 1970, on the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, according to the Library of Congress. The first Brooklyn Pride Parade took place on June 14, 1997, becoming the third such march to be organized in New York City after those in Manhattan and Queens.

Know a Brooklyn Pride event Brooklyn Paper should spotlight? Contact reporter Jessica Parks at [email protected].