The City of Bayonne has announced plans for the municipal inauguration and related events that will take place tomorrow, Wednesday, July 1.
The day’s public events will begin with an Inaugural Mass at St. Henry’s Roman Catholic Church at 1:30 p.m. St. Henry’s is located across the street from City Hall at 28th Street and Avenue C.
The Municipal Inauguration is scheduled for the Bayonne High School Auditorium at 3:30 p.m. The auditorium is located at 30th Street and Avenue A. At that event, Mayor Sharon Ashe-Nadrowski, Council Member At-Large Mariam Salama, Council Member At-Large Mark Bottino, First Ward Council Member Gene Perry, Second Ward Council Member Melissa Godesky Rodriguez, and Third Ward Council Member Tommy Gillen will take their oaths of office. The inaugural ceremonies will also feature speeches by elected officials, prayers by local clergy, and musical entertainment.
The festivities will continue in the evening at the lower level of DiDomenico-16th Street Park with a celebration of American Independence. At the park, children’s inflatable rides will be available from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. A concert with two bands will begin at 7:00 p.m. The bands are Break Time and In A Pinch. Fireworks will begin at approximately 9:15 p.m. and will run for approximately thirty minutes.
The rides will be stationed in the old amphitheater, which is located at the southeastern corner of the park’s lower level.
Break Time is a Bayonne-based band that combines music of the 1960’s with the band’s own more recent compositions. In A Pinch is a classic rock band from Pennsylvania. The two bands will play at the municipal amphitheater, which is located at the southwestern corner of the lower level of the park, near Newark Bay.
Chairs will not be provided for the fireworks and the concert on July 1, due to the expected size of the crowd. Spectators are asked to bring their own chairs on July 1 and on future concert dates. A limited number of chairs will be provided at later concerts this summer.
Food vendors will be located in the parking lot.
A buffer zone will be created in the park and the bay for residents’ safety. Only authorized people will be allowed inside the buffer zone. No pleasure craft in Newark Bay will be permitted within a perimeter of at least 500 feet from the launch site, as per the U.S. Coast Guard. The Fire Department will have a boat in the bay during the show.
The Bayonne Recreation Division is providing free shuttle bus service for the event and will pick up passengers at the former Assumption Church parking lot on West 23rd Street between Kennedy Boulevard and Avenue C
Shuttle bus service will begin at 6:00 p.m., and will drop off passengers at the lower level parking lot alongside the tennis courts until 8:30 p.m. Following the fireworks, at approximately 10:00 p.m., the buses will pick up passengers at the same area for the return trip to the former Assumption Church parking lot on West 23rd Street between Kennedy Boulevard and Avenue C.
Shuttles will continue to run until all passengers have been returned to West 23rd Street by approximately 11:00 p.m.