Last year, we went to see the Chicago Chinatown New Year Parade. It was a colorful event. Banners, dragons, bands, etc. The weather was good enough this year — above freezing, no rain — to go again, but instead we opted for the Argyle Street Lunar New Year Parade on the North Side of Chicago on Saturday. I wondered how it would compare.

The short answer: it was a lot shorter. Fewer of everything. Still, not a bad parade. At 1 pm it started, fittingly, on Argyle Street, just west of the El tracks that run over the street. asia on argyle, as the letters just below the tracks say. I took the picture after the parade, when the street got back to normal.

From there, the parade headed east on Argyle; we stood just east of the El tracks. Argyle is the focus of what used to be known as New Chinatown, but in fact the neighborhood is more Vietnamese than anything else, with plenty of Vietnamese restaurants, grocery stores and shops. I’m a little surprised the event isn’t more specifically Tet.

Dragons started things off.

Followed by politicos. I think.
Various floats.
A few colorful banners.
One band, from the Admiral Hyman Rickover Naval Academy High School.
With flag girls.
Some veterans.
And a costumed character or two.
Guess he’s the school mascot. A cat walking in a Year of the Dog parade.