Known as Jouvert, the 2019 West Indian Day Parade & Celebration Has Begun

Everywhere else in the world, Carnival festivities are celebrated in the depths of winter — just before Lent. But here in Brooklyn, summer’s the time for dancing in the street.

On Labor Day weekend, Thursday, Aug. 29 through Monday, Sept. 2, 2019, the New York Caribbean Carnival Week, or what is also known as “J’Ouvert” or the West Indian Day Parade, will kick off a five-day celebration that takes over Crown Heights and the surrounding areas of East Brooklyn. It draws a huge crowd – some say millions – of spectators and costumed dancers representing the whole gamut of Caribbean islands.

Festivities run the entire time, but Monday is the main event when an early morning parade (11 a.m. start) of dancers, floats and marching Calypso bands course down a two-mile stretch of Eastern Parkway, the main artery of Crown Heights, from Schenectady Ave., to the final destination at Empire Boulevard.

What is Jouvert?

Spelled Jouvert, J’Ouvert, or Jouvay (pronounced “Jou-vay”), the word comes from the French phrase “jour ouvert,” which means daybreak or morning. In traditional Caribbean cultures, the parade starts early in the morning — sometimes 3 a.m., but the Crown Heights’ parade begins at a much more manageable time of 11 a.m. (many revelers begin to celebrate at 6 a.m.) and will be followed by the West Indian Day Carnival. So, essentially, a party from dawn to dusk.

In Brooklyn and the city at large, the parade is a well-known end of summer tradition that draws major attention and crowds to the area. It’s an event that brings together amateur and professional musicians alike, local and state politicians from across the board, Caribbean cultural and activist groups of all stripes and revelers of all ages and origins.

It is at once an eclectic celebration that features an international cast of dancers and musicians and at the same time a very local one – engaging vendors and residents from the avenues that intersect with Eastern Parkway. Local designers spend months assembling elaborate outfits involving feathered headdresses, bedazzled tiaras, tasseled bikinis and of course, a hell of a lot of body glitter for dancers to shimmy and shake in as they parade by.