New York City hosts the largest Bastille Day celebrations in the United States. The French community in New York — estimated at over 60,000 — gathers every July 14 in events across Manhattan: street festivals in the East 60s, rooftop parties in the Meatpacking District, and the annual Alliance Française gala that has been running for decades.
The main street festival runs on 60th Street between Fifth and Lexington Avenues — the heart of New York's French community. The neighbourhood around the French consulate, the Alliance Française, and the Lycée Français de New York has been the centre of French life in the city since the late nineteenth century.
The festival typically runs from late morning to evening, with French food vendors, pétanque on the street, French music, and a garçon de café race in which waiters in traditional uniform carry laden trays at speed. It is crowded, loud, and unmistakably French — a Bastille Day that could only happen in New York.
The French connection to New York predates the city itself. Giovanni da Verrazzano — sailing under French patronage — was the first European to enter what is now New York Harbor, in 1524. The statue in the Narrows bearing his name faces the bay he was the first to map.
The Statue of Liberty, given by France to the United States in 1886, stands in New York Harbor as the most visible symbol of the Franco-American relationship. The sculptor, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, came to New York to oversee its installation. The engineer who designed the iron armature inside the statue was Gustave Eiffel — seven years before he built his tower.
The Alliance Française de New York, founded in 1898, is one of the largest in the world. It runs language programmes for thousands of students and a cultural programme that includes film, lectures, and exhibitions drawn from the best of contemporary French culture.
7,000 American Francophiles read Love France every week. From the Bastille Day crowds of New York to the villages of Provence — Love France brings France to you.
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