Memorial Day Weekend 2024: Parades, Events In Edison, Metuchen (2024)

Community Corner

Here's a roundup of Memorial Day events in and around Edison, Metuchen:

Posted Fri, May 24, 2024 at 10:48 am ET|Updated Sun, May 26, 2024 at 11:57 pm ET

• Metuchen Memorial Day Parade: Metuchen's annual Memorial Day Parade and Ceremony will be held Monday, May 27. The parade will begin at 10 a.m. from American Legion to the Plaza.

Below are some other events and parades nearby:

American Veterans Traveling Tribute Wall East Brunswick

The American Veterans Traveling Tribute (AVTT) has come to East Brunswick Community Arts Center and will be here through May 27. It was brought to East Brunswick by the VFW Memorial Post 133, in coordination with the Township.

The AVTT Traveling Vietnam Wall is an 80 percent replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The Wall contains the names of U.S. Military personnel who lost their lives in the Vietnam War. Accompanying the Wall will be Cost of Freedom tributes to every U.S. military action since World War I.
An opening ceremony was held on Thursday. The Wall will be open to visitors beginning Thursday, through Memorial Day, May 27.

Spotswood Memorial Day Parade

The Spotswood Memorial Day Parade will be held Monday, May 27, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Middlesex Borough Memorial Day Parade

The borough will host a Memorial Day parade on Monday, May 27, 10 a.m. onwards, beginning at Victor Crowell Park.

As the observance has changed over the years, many families also use Memorial Day as an occasion to visit YOUR PATCH cemeteries and leave flowers at the graves of family members, regardless of whether they served in the military.

Memorial Day Weekend is also the unofficial kickoff to summer in Edison and Metuchen. The Metuchen Municipal Swimming Pool will officially open on Saturday, May 25, for weekends only, until June 21. They will be open seven days a week through the Labor Day weekend.

The history of Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, dates back to 1868, when Gen. John A. Logan called for a day of remembrance to honor the Northern lives lost amid battle during the Civil War that had ended just a few years earlier, according to History.com. As time passed, more and more people called it Memorial Day, and it became a federal holiday in 1971.

Waterloo, New York, is considered the birthplace of Memorial Day. The town’s observance on May 5, 1866, predated Logan’s call for a day of remembrance. Local businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of fallen soldiers with flowers and flags.

Until World War I, the holiday honored only those soldiers who died while fighting for the Union in the War, as Southern states honored their war dead on a separate day. After the 116,000-plus American deaths in World War I, the tradition changed to remember all who have died while serving in the military.