Scenes from the 41st Annual Mermaid Parade in Coney Island

Kool Keith was a no-show as parade king, but thousands of sexy and scary sea creatures took over Surf Avenue and the boardwalk

By Scott Lynch

On Saturday afternoon huge crowds lined Coney Island’s Surf Avenue and the iconic boardwalk for the 41st annual Mermaid Parade, cheering on hundreds of creatively costumed revelers who marched, danced, and partied their way through the “playground of the world.”

There were about a dozen marching bands and drum lines to keep everyone pumped up, as well as floats and portable speakers blasting bangers. Several groups had elaborate dance routines, like the longtime Mermaid participants Tails of Glory crew, who this year came as a school of “Swedish Fish” and busted their moves to a nonstop Abba medley.

Queen Mermaid Laurie Cumbo and crew (Scott Lynch)

Mermaid rookie Kenny Wang of Windsor Terrace was an instant convert. “This is my first Mermaid Parade and it’s amazing,” he told Brooklyn Magazine. “It’s colorful, everybody’s out, you’ve got everybody under the sun here, and everybody’s friendly and having a good time.”

Costumes ranged from sexy to terrifying, cute to trashy, half-assed to months-in-the-making, with plenty of just straight-up bizarre stuff in the mix as well. And although there were, of course, plenty of mermaids, mermen, and non-binary mers in attendance, anything even remotely related to the sea was fair game.

(Photo by Scott Lynch)

“I love the Mermaid Parade, it’s so much fun,” Tina Krause of Bushwick said. ”It’s creative, it’s colorful, it’s funny, all of it.”

This year’s King Neptune, the legendary rapper Kool Keith, was a no-show, an absence unexplained at press time, so Queen Mermaid Laurie Cumbo, a Brooklyn native and the city’s Commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs, rode the route with her son.

Here are a few more scenes from one of the most fun days in the borough.