Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso Just Saved the Mermaid Parade — $20,000 in Funding, a Standing Commitment Through His Term, and a Coney Island Comic-Con Crossover

“The Mermaid Parade will not be canceled on my watch,” Reynoso said this afternoon at Coney Island USA. The 44th annual parade was on the edge of cancellation. Then a GoFundMe, then the Borough President, then Comic-Con stepped in.

This afternoon at 4 PM, I was at Coney Island USA’s headquarters at 1208 Surf Avenue when Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso made the announcement that closed the financial gap on the 44th annual Mermaid Parade: $20,000 from his office to Coney Island USA. And then — to a room of cheers — Reynoso committed to baseline funding every year he’s in office.

“The Mermaid Parade is Brooklyn. The Mermaid Parade is Coney Island,” Reynoso said. “I’ll be damned if the Mermaid Parade won’t run any year that I am the Borough President.”

Adam Rinn, the Artistic Director of Coney Island USA, opened the press conference with the kind of honesty you rarely hear from a nonprofit director on stage. The 44th annual parade — the most anticipated summer event in Brooklyn — was very close to not being a reality. Coney Island USA, which operates the parade as well as a sideshow, museum, and arts programming out of the oldest landmark building in the amusement district, has been through some rough financial patches over the last few years. The post-COVID years have hit small arts organizations across the city hard, and Coney Island USA was on the verge of not staging the 44th annual parade.

The GoFundMe That Started It

As a last resort, Coney Island USA set up a GoFundMe. The response was, in Rinn’s words, “truly immense.” When Reynoso heard from constituents and on social media that there was a real possibility the parade might not happen, he made the call to act. At his 2026 State of the Borough Address, the Borough President announced the allocation publicly — and the room erupted.

“It was those applause and Borough President Reynoso’s swift response that made me truly realize just how significant both this neighborhood and the parade are to the people of Brooklyn and beyond,” Rinn said this afternoon.

Comic-Con Comes to Coney Island

Then the second piece dropped. New York Comic Con — the largest pop culture event in New York City — has not only signed on as a presenting sponsor for this year’s parade, but the theme of this year’s New York Comic Con is Coney Island. Fall 2026 at the Javits Center will be themed around the amusement district. A small Brooklyn neighborhood becoming the visual identity of one of the biggest entertainment conventions in America.

The Standing Commitment: $20K Every Year

Reynoso went further than just one year’s bailout. He committed publicly, on the record, that as long as he’s the Brooklyn Borough President, Coney Island USA can count on baseline $20,000 funding for the Mermaid Parade every single year. “You guys can baseline 20 grand every single year for this parade to happen,” he said. “Thank you so much.”

That commitment matters. Annual parade funding allows Coney Island USA to plan ahead — to book talent, secure permits, lock in vendors — without the year-by-year scramble that small arts nonprofits know all too well. It’s the kind of recurring municipal commitment that quietly stabilizes the cultural ecosystem of a borough.

Born in 1983 — Same Year as Reynoso

Reynoso took a moment to note that the Mermaid Parade was born in 1983 — the same year he was. “Mermaid Parade was like a January baby and I was an older baby, but 43 years.” He’s 43. The parade turns 44 this June. He couldn’t help but mark the coincidence.

The Borough President closed with a Notorious B.I.G. reference: “Spread love is the Brooklyn way. And I can’t wait for all you guys to celebrate the love for the Mermaid Parade here in Coney Island.”

A Look Back: What’s Being Saved

For anyone who hasn’t been to the Mermaid Parade, or hasn’t been in a few years, here’s what’s at stake. The Mermaid Parade is the largest art parade in America. Every June, tens of thousands of New Yorkers and visitors line Surf Avenue and the boardwalk to witness one of the most gloriously weird, defiantly creative, completely Brooklyn things this city produces.

Drag mermaids. Punk mermaids. Family mermaids. King Neptune figures. Ten-foot lobsters. Sequined sea creatures. Folks who plan their costumes for months. Folks who throw it together the night before. All of them on Surf Avenue, all in one Saturday in June.

This is what was nearly lost.

What This Actually Means

The Mermaid Parade isn’t just a parade. It’s the largest art parade in America, drawing tens of thousands of New Yorkers and visitors to Surf Avenue every June. It’s where Brooklyn shows up in its full, weird, glorious self — the floats, the costumes, the sequins, the Polar Bear Club veterans alongside first-time paraders. Losing it would have been a real cultural wound to the borough.

What Reynoso did this afternoon is the kind of municipal action that doesn’t usually make front pages: a Borough President listening to constituents, seeing a small arts organization on the brink, and intervening with discretionary funding before the moment passed. That’s how civic infrastructure actually gets preserved.

And the public reach goes deeper. The GoFundMe came first — ordinary people putting their dollars on the line. The Borough President’s office came second. New York Comic Con came third. Three different actors in three different institutional spaces all converging because the same thing matters: the parade goes on.

The 44th annual Mermaid Parade is set for Saturday, June 20, 2026 along Surf Avenue and the Coney Island Boardwalk. I’ll be there with the camera. Always have been.