Arts

US: Empire State Building lights up rainbow ahead of New York Pride parade

Jun 29 2014
Written by Nick Duffy

The Empire State Building lit up in rainbow this week, in honour of today’s New York Pride parade.

The famous building – currently the second tallest in New York – lit up in the colours of a pride flag from Friday night.

The city’s pride march, which is expected to attract large crowds, is set to get under way later today.

The parade, which traditionally sets off from Manhattan and ends outside the Stonewall Inn, is set to begin at noon.

The three grand marshals for the event will be Looking star Jonathan Groff, actress Laverne Cox, and Rae Carey, of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

The event will be livestreamed on YouTube through #PrideCast, in a collaboration between Google and Mashable.

The official Empire State Building twitter account said: “Tonight, we will beam once again w/ #rainbow lights to honor @NYCPride Week. #LGBT”.

Last week, a party promoter was banned from using the phrase “NYC Pride”, because it infringed on the trademark of the group who run the annual pride event.

Heritage of Pride (HOP) had launched legal action against Matinee NYC and Voss NYC over their use of the phrase.

Promoter Brandon Voss said in a statement: “It is absurd that any organization should own the word Pride used next to the name of our city. Especially one that is using this as a tactic to funnel revenue to itself by demanding fees for the right to call themselves ‘official’ events.”