Umbrellas bobbed like lanterns in San Francisco’s Union Square, as party poppers snapped on the sodden pavement. Atop a float with a blue rabbit, dancers waved fans to the beat of Pharrell Williams’ hit song “Happy.”
Crowds of spectators packed the city’s downtown streets Saturday night, standing on newspaper racks or huddling under department store awnings, craning their necks to see the 2023 Lunar New Parade snake up Geary and Post streets toward Chinatown.
Behind the throngs stood scores of police officers, fulfilling a promise that Assistant Police Chief David Lazar made last month, a day after a gunman killed 11 people of Asian descent in Monterey Park. With the specter of that massacre looming over this year’s festivities — and heightening the fear and anguish of a community already reeling from anti-Asian hate crimes — Lazar pledged to beef up police protection, and provide “a visible presence.”
Despite rain showers, people packed together to watch the Chinese New Year Parade work its way through San Francisco on Saturday.
Justin Katigbak/Special to The Chronicle, Freelance / Speical to The ChronicleOn Saturday, even the police officers seemed transfixed by the spectacle of lion dancers, marching bands, revelers in traditional Qipao dresses, and rabbits of all kinds. Two attendees trudged up Geary Street in bunny-eared ski masks, and the bandleader of the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band wore a cotton tail.
“My favorite part is the dragons and watching the kids’ faces,” said Melissa Gustafson, who had driven her kids from El Dorado County for what she hoped would become an annual tradition. The family had spent the day wandering through Chinatown, eating dim sum and buying trinkets at little shops. Gustafson’s five year old daughter happily waved a fish ornament, watching the parade from her father’s…
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