Flashback Friday: The First Earth Day Celebration In Sunset Park

Happy Earth Day!

Did you know that on this day, 46 years ago, Sunset Park resident and community advocate Tony Giordano, along with friends and neighbors, organized “the first Earth Day event in Sunset Park.”

“We were the Street People Coalition and the grown-ups that you see in the pic were politicians running for office,” wrote Giordano on the Sunset Parker Facebook page. “We only got media coverage because the [local newspaper] in those days was a politically active newspaper and pushing insurgent candidates – so they covered our event.”

That first Earth Day celebration featured a park clean-up — raking and bagging leaves — and general merriment among civic-minded youth in the neighborhood.

“We were not into drugs, but were interested in society,” Giordano told us. Later, we also “held a health fair in the old precinct house [at 43rd Street and Fourth Avenue] to show its viability as a community space.”

What are you doing this Earth Day weekend?