New York City has lots of wild parades—you got your Chinese New Year with all those crazy dragons, your April Fool's where everyone dresses like idiots, your GLBT Pride where social norms are annihilated, your Global Marijuana March where everybody's stoned, and your Village Halloween parade which is pretty self-explanatory. But of all those and the countless others, by far, the coolest parade you could ever see in New York has to be the annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade.

Where else in Brooklyn can you see women dressed as mermaids, men dressed as mermaids, people dressed like amusement park rides, or condos in protest, antique cars, graffitied buses, and a plethora of other freaks in their element? And see it all while standing on line for a Nathan's Famous hot dog?

After you stuff your face, you can grab some beers and head to the beach—but wait! The parade wraps around from the street to the boardwalk. Most parades in NYC are damn near impossible to see, much less see twice. Here, you’ll be right up front and center near the colorful procession of seashell bras, body paint and trucks decked out in retinal décor ranging from 60’s tiedye to colorful octopus tentacles. Music pours from every direction along the way.

The Coney Island Mermaid Parade is also the only parade I know of where people sign up to march that very morning, and it's still always a complete success! Last year was the parade's 25^th anniversary, and it had the biggest turnout since it's inception in 1983. This was mostly due to the impending doom facing Coney Island last summer, but because of the outcry, Coney Island lived to have another parade this year.

The Mermaid Parade in itself is an homage to the history of Coney Island—based on the Mardi Gras parade that occurred there for fifty years in the early 1900s. Now a much more updated and bizarre event, it stands as not only a way to have fun on a Saturday in June, but a way to say, “Save Coney Island!” To this end, a marching band led a joyful crowd like the pied piper into the ocean and standing waist-deep in the lapping waves, played “here’s to the freaks on the beach – fuck the developers!”

This year, the parade's King Neptune was Rev. Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping, and the Queen Mermaid was Savitri D., who subsequently went on a hunger strike to protest the development plans still looming over Coney Island.

If all goes well, we'll be able to see another Mermaid Parade next summer. And you have a whole year to make plans to get your ass over there!

The Coney Island Mermaid Parade happens every year around the 22^nd of June on Surf Avenue in Brooklyn, NY 11224. The D, Q, N and F trains all go there. If you live in New York, you have no excuse!

- Words by Kyle Timlin. Photos by Amy Dupcak. Igor Kossov contributed reporting.