Newsday from New York, New York • 32

MH i Phone Items to (718) 520-0505 BROOKLYN CLOSEUP GREENPOINT Group Marks 100th Year on Patrons Day One hundred years ago, when Italian immigrants from the town of Suiza in Salerno established a community here, they brought with them a tradition of devotion to their patron saint. Our Lady of the Snow, and started an organization named in her honor. Our Lady of the Snow Society, with a male membership of 145 and a female auxiliary of 130 associated with St. Francis de Paola Church, was formed to perpetuate that tradition. The organization is celebrating its centenary today, its patron saints feast day, with a number of activities, starting with a 10 a.m.

mass at the church, at Conselyea and Humboldt Streets. White doves will be released at a ceremony following the mass. At 11:30 a.m. a parade of floats and marching bands will stepoff from the societys hall at 410 Graham Ave. The procession will wind through the streets for about four hours, ending back at the hall where free refreshments will be served to the entire community.

Ncwadajr Jsfltay A. Setter One of the colorfully costumed dancers in last year's parade along Eastern Parkway. West Indian Carnival Set Despite Road Construction EAST NEW YORK All-Stars Make Their Pitch Tomorrow Disc jockeys and the Screen Actors Guild team from the Broadway Show League will be among those up to bat tomorrow in the 13th Annual Starrett Adult Softball League All-Star Day. The games begin at 10:30 a.m. and continue until 6 p.m., ending with a special basketball game featuring the Youth Federation of Starrett City.

Softball games will be played at the field on Seaview Avenue between Pennsylvania and liiimiii Avenues, and basketball on the section courts located off Louisiana Avenue near Seaview Avenue. EAST NEW YORK Playground Renamed for Slain Officer A playground at Sutter and Grant Avenues now bears the name of Robert E. Venable, a transit police officer who was killed in the line of duty not far from his home on Sept. 22 last year. Venable, who was 35, was an East New York, resident and a concerned and active member of his community.

As a child, he was involved in the Boy Scouts and Police Athletic League. He worked in the Head Start program of School District 19, and he was a teachers aide at the Cypress Hills Day Care Center. while serving as a police officer, he spent his free time working with local youngsters, encouraging them to help improve their neighborhood. He organized sports programs and trips, and groups of volunteers to clean up the parks. Residents decided to remember him by having the linden Plaza Playground renamed in his honor.

participants will compete for prizes in a costume contest on Sunday, Sept. 4, starting at 1 p.m. at the museum grounds. Sunday night is Dimanche Gras, the grand finale, when the King of the Bands competiton will be held. Winners of the other competitions will make guest appearances and awards will be presented.

A show that night will feature limbo dancers, popular calypsonians and a visiting band from Trinidad. There will be a little bit of eveiything, promised Joyce Quamina, the festivals business manager. Each year some onlookers have questioned the seemingly haphazard timing and informality of the groups and individuals appearing in the parade. But Carlos Twama, president ofthe festival association, explained that the event lacks the precision of a military parade because it is really mare like a gigantic block party. He said the costume and music bands will begin to assemble at about 8 a.m.

then move off at about 11 a.m., mingling and meeting friends as they go along. We dont want to term this as a parade per ae, he said, because its a unique thins. Its not a military kind of thing. Its a carnival. This is a very slow process.

Dancing in the street, you leave this band and jump around for a few minutes. Talk. You see your friends. Youre so happy you hug them and walk again. Two steps forward and two steps back.

Thq origins of the festival, according to carnival lore, dates back to 17th-Century French plantation owners who used to don elaborate costumes for pre-Lenten visits to their friends. As a form of mockery, slaves who worked on the plantations yirould affect similar get-up and beat drums' during celebrations marking the end of the sugar cane harvest and, later, their emancipation from slavery. Lezama said the custom was transported to New York by a Trinidadian, Jessie Waddle, who organized an annual parade in Harlem during the 1940s, that culminated in a dance at the Renaissance Ballroom. In the 1960s it was moved to Brooklyn, which has the citys largest concentration of West Indians. Vendors, band members and everyone who.

plans to participate must register with Quamina fay Sept. 3 at 1112 Nostrand between 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. phone number is (718) 774-8807. They must also attend a meeting for the genercd public on Aug: 17 at the 67th Precinct station house on Snyder Avenue, beginning at 6 jn. By Merle English Costumed groups and floats'c reggae and steel bands will be on Eastern Parkway on Labor Day for the 21st annual West Indi-an-Amerkan Day Carnival.

City Department of Transportation officials said reconstruction of the parkway will not affect the festival, which attracted an estimated 2.5 million people last year. Eastern Parkway, from Washington Avenue to Ralph Avenue, is Ming renovated to return the roadway to the way it looked when it first opened in file late 1800s, according to Richard laBarca, deputy borough engineer for the DOTS Brooklyn Construction Division. A federal-, state- and city-funded $58-million, three-year prqject got under way in July of last year, involving the installation of new sewers, water mains, curbs and sidewalks and rebuilt malls with bike paths and lighting. Also planned are new traffic signals and left-turn pavement markings to increase safety and improve traffic flow. Hundreds of trees will be planted to replace diseased and dead ones.

LaBarca said that the area would be cleaned up for the festival and that the construction work would not affect the parade. Weve been meeting regularly with the parade committee and the police to coordinate our work, he said. We intend to have three blocks on the north aide of Eastern Parkwqy in the vicinity of Brooklyn Avenue taken up with construction equipment. The rest of the length of Eastern Parkway should be open free and clear. The main route anil be totally unobstructed.

The south and north service roads wont be fully paved but will be dear for emergency vehicles, he said. The five-day festival opens on Thursday, 'Sept. 1, with Creole Night, when French-language entertainers, including stars from Martinique and Haiti, will perform on the grounds of the Brooklyn Museum on Washington Avemue. Friday, Sept. 2, is Jamaica Night, what reggae music willbe highlighted.

A Kiddies Carnival, a new feature, will be introduced on Saturday morning, Sept. 3, with children in costumes parading along President Street, starting at 10 a.m. from Nostrand Avenue and ending at the museum grounds. That night, there will be a costume parade on the mounds, during which a Queen of the Bands will be chosen, and about steelbands will vie for $5,000, $3,000 and $2,000 prizes. The Kiddie Carnival PARK SLOPE Youths Stage Talent and Fashion Show They have been cleaning the parks and working in senior citizen and day care centers, and now its time to show off their other skills.

CD So on Monday, from noon to 3 p.m., youngsters in the Summer Youth Employment Program run by Community Board 6 will stage a talent and fashion show at the Prospect Park at 11th Street and Prospect Park West They have done a bang-up job, and we felt that they should have their place in the sun, said Mary Sewer, director of the program. The youngBters also helped out in neighborhood service and government nonprofit agencies, and worked in day camps and schools. A donation will be asked from those attending to help pay for cash prizes, trophies and plaques 53 fcrtlip.pKfoiners. i i ii I I I rrr 1 1- ff-jr, ft jL.