In the 28 previous years that the Wonderful Woodhaven Street Fair was held, it drizzled once. That's about a 96% success rate, nothing to sneeze at. So here's one way to look at it: We were due. The forecast had been looking bad for a few days leading up to the fair, but we were all keeping our fingers crossed. And when Saturday's weather turned out to be better than forecast, there seemed to be a glimmer of hope. But as we all woke up Sunday morning it was clear that we had a long, cold, wet and windy day ahead of us.
Some vendors began arriving around 8:00, tentatively setting up in gusts that made it difficult to pitch their tents. But on the bright side, it was about the cleanest we'd seen Jamaica Avenue in a while. Look how shiny it is!
One of the cool things about being out early, is watching the vendors set up while cars are still rolling down the Avenue. We walked all the way down from Forest Parkway to 89th Street and then we were getting cold so we headed back to Pop's for breakfast. It was cool watching the Parks Department set up the stage at Forest Parkway. It arrives looking like an ordinary trailer, and then opens up to reveal a stage and a small roof. And by positioning it under the train station as they did, they created a nice piece of cover for the artists and their audience. There ended up being some issue with the electricity, and some scrambling around for a connection and a fire extinguisher. To be honest, I stayed away until it looked like they had it under control. Something about the combination of live electric cables, big puddles and city workers made me nervous. Anyway, here are The Four Pops performing for the crowd. Here's the Four Pops again, courtesy of our friend Joe Virgona. The Pops are a doo-wop band and sing a lot of the great songs of the 50s and 60s. Here's Maria Thomson, Exec. Director of the Greater Woodhaven Development Corporation with her husband Robert. The GWDC has been bringing the street fair to Woodhaven for 3 decades! Here's our video report of the day. We apologize in advance for the lack of festivities on the video -- but the weather was the storey of the day (although it did clear up a bit later in the afternoon). This video will show you how wet it was -- but it's had to show how cold it was that day. You can tell by the way people are dressed. Oh, and as a little bonus, stay to the very end of the video for "The Final Word" from a beloved face from Woodhaven of years past.
About that train ride, we had walked all the way down to Woodhaven Boulevard to see what was happening, and it was too cold to walk all the way back to Forest Parkway. Below is Janet Chan-Smith and Linda Fogel of the Woodhaven Residents' Block Association. It looked like most of the food vendors didn't let the rain deter them and there was, as usual, a terrific selection. There seemed to be less Zeppoles this year, and for the first time ever we went home empty handed. That's not to say there weren't anyone selling Zeppoles, it's just that we waited until we were ready to leave and by then we didn't feel like hunting for them. Usually you walked a block or so and there they were. That's okay, I could do without them :-) Here's the Woodhaven-Richmond Hill Volunteer Ambulance Corp. Like all volunteer/civic groups, the WRHVAC has been hurt financially, and volunteers have been scarce. We'll be posting more on that in the very near future -- they are a great bunch of people and it's such a worthwhile cause that deserves all of our support. Between 90th Street and Woodhaven Boulevard they had the usual assortment of rides and games. We didn't see the gigantic inflatable slide this year, with the high winds that would have been dangerous. There was a smaller slide instead, a Batman slide, that the kids were having fun on. That's the end of Part 1 of this report. If you have any comments, or would like to suggest other projects, drop us a line at 
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