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Ridgites, ragamuffins herald autumn with Third Avenue celebrations

Ridgites, ragamuffins herald autumn with Third Avenue celebrations
Photo by Georgine Benvenuto

Ridgites welcomed in fall with local flair over the weekend.

Two annual mainstays ushered in the unofficial start of autumn in Bay Ridge on Oct. 3 and 4.

First, hundreds of kids and youthful adults put on their best get-ups and took to Third Avenue for the 49th-annual Ragamuffin Parade on Oct. 3.

Ridgite Sean Solitario clinched the costume competition dressed as an arcade claw machine. Apparently, life imitates art for Solitario, who sat surrounded by prizes in the boxy costume — he’s won the competition four years in a row and taken home a new bicycle each time. Rather than horde his prizes over the years, the youth has found new homes for the bikes, his grandmother said.

“We’ve donated or sold them in the past, but this one he really likes because it has pegs on it,” said grandmother Marianne Fezza.

It may be no surprise that Solitario sweeps the award — he’s a third-generation Ragamuffin, on his mother’s side, the grandma said.

“We’ve been doing the Ragamuffin Parade for years and years, and we try to outdo ourselves every year,” said Fezza, who marched in the parade in its early years herself. “We’ve probably won, over the years, nine or ten times.”

Then on Sunday, Ridgites once again hit the streets for the Third Avenue Festival, when the corridor turned into a grand concourse of local delights. Avenue merchants set up tables outdoors, denizens dined al fresco, and local bands rocked out street-side during the fete, which stretched from Bay Ridge Avenue to 92nd Street.

Reach reporter Max Jaeger at mjaeger@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260–8303. Follow him on Twitter @JustTheMax.