Thousands of people celebrated their Caribbean heritage and culture at the 2025 West Indian Day Parade on Monday, a high-energy festival that marks Labor Day in New York.
Brooklyn residents and visitors came out in style for the festivities that kicked off with J'Ouvert at 6:00am and continued with a parade along Eastern Parkway.
Many elected officials were seen walking the parade route, including Governor Kathy Hochul, Senator Chuck Schumer, New York Attorney General Letitia James, many City Council Members and State Senators and Assemblymembers, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, and mayoral candidates Curtis Sliwa, Zohran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Eric Adams.
Despite the festive atmosphere, there was gun violence, where seven people were shot amid four instances, according to NBC News 4 New York. This was amid a record presence of police officers that were deployed to watch the crowd.
That said, revelers and parade participants donned costumes they had been working for months and waved flags from Caribbean nations throughout the day.
