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When Alfred E. Smith IV steps out to lead the 252nd annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade March 16 in Manhattan, the grand marshal will don a top hat last worn by his great-grandfather, the late Al Smith, when the four-time governor of New York and 1928 Democratic U.S. presidential nominee served as grand marshal of the 1925 parade.
“I’m proud to play a piece in a 252-year-old tradition,” Smith said.
The New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade marched for the first time in 1762, 14 years before the Declaration of Independence was signed in Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
It is a high honor, he said, to march in the footsteps of his paternal great-grandfather along the same parade route of 88 years ago. “Anything that I can do that even remotely has anything to do with him, I’m extremely proud of.”
Smith, 61, is CEO of AE Smith Associates, a business advisory and corporate consulting firm he founded in 2009, headquartered in New York City. He also serves as the director, secretary and dinner chairman for the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation.
In 2006, after 35 years on Wall Street, Smith retired from his position as managing director of Bear Wagner Specialists LLC, a specialist and member firm of the New York Stock Exchange.
“I’ve always cherished my Irish roots,” Smith said. “This is kind of the ultimate, to be representing your family, America, Ireland, on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. It’s quite an illustrious crowd. It’s a wonderful New York tradition.”
“You can’t say enough about St. Patrick,” Smith said, or, for that matter, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where the St. Patrick’s Day Mass will be celebrated at 8:30 a.m. the same day as the parade. “It’s a great tribute to our patron saint of Ireland.”
The liturgy is an integral component of the St. Patrick Day festivities because of “our faith being lived out at Mass every day,” Smith said.
Cardinal Dolan called Smith before the cardinal’s Feb. 26 departure for Rome to bid farewell to the now-retired Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and to participate in the conclave to elect his successor as pope.
The call was to congratulate Smith for being named grand marshal. Not knowing when the conclave would commence and conclude, the cardinal told Smith he could not be certain he would be able to return to New York in time for the St. Patrick’s Mass and parade, which will take place on Saturday, March 16.
“He’s a good friend,” Smith said. “He wished me good luck. He said he had something just a little more important to do that day.”
The cardinal concluded the conversation by asking Smith for his prayers. Smith assured him he would pray for him, then joked to the cardinal: “I was hoping you’d carry me up Fifth Avenue.”
Smith was stunned he was named grand marshal. “Somebody once told me that I’d be the grand marshal of the St. Patrick’s parade if a pope resigned one day,” he quipped.
“Being grand marshal means a lot to me, vis-à-vis, my great-grandfather,” he added in earnest.
“I’ll certainly be thinking of him, and other past grand marshals” throughout the parade.
Just what is the role of a grand marshal? “I’m still working that out,” Smith said. “Just representing your Irish background” is a big part of the job.
In that regard, Smith is mindful of the Irish immigrants of yesteryear, particularly their stalwart perseverance in carrying their many crosses with courage, conviction and devout Catholic faith.
Then as now, “the Irish just hang in there,” Smith said. “It’s never really been easy for them. They’ve certainly got their challenges now, but they’re so resilient. Of all the problems in Europe, I think the Irish will come through the best and the first. They’re used to struggles. Their resilience will bring them back bigger and better than ever, and get that Celtic machine rung again.”
His great-grandfather, Al Smith, is among those ancestors who fought the good fight and won. His father died when Al was in the eighth grade. He then quit school and went to work in a fish market to help raise his sister and provide for their mother. “He cherished his Irish roots,” Smith said of his great-grandfather. “He once said that the St. Patrick’s Day Parade grand marshal was one of the greatest honors of his life. That was 1925 and the best was yet to come for him.”
Smith and wife Nan are the parents of two grown children, Alfred E. Smith V and Catherine Smith Totero, and three grandchildren: Emilie and Spencer Smith, and Charlie Totero. His close-knit family means everything to him, he said.
The Smiths raised their children in St. Thomas More parish in Darien, Conn., and now reside in St. Aloysius parish in New Canaan, Conn., both in the Diocese of Bridgeport. They also attend St. Christopher’s parish in Hobe Sound, Florida, Diocese of Palm Beach.
The oldest of seven children, Smith was born in Brooklyn and raised in Rye. There, he attended Resurrection School until “the nuns couldn’t take me any longer,” he joked. He then transferred to Iona Grammar School in New Rochelle for the seventh and eighth grades. He graduated from Iona Prep in New Rochelle in 1969, then attended Villanova University in Villanova, Pa.
Just as Al Smith did after his father’s death, Smith helped carry the baton after his father died when Smith was 21. “When my father passed away, I went to cover his seat on the New York Stock Exchange.”
Carrying on the family legacy was, and continues to be, vitally important to Smith. In addition to his membership on numerous boards, he has served as chairman of the board of St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers in New York. He has also represented the Wall Street division of the archdiocese’s Catholic Charities endeavors and served as the president of the Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in New York.
Smith counts New York’s St. Patrick’s Day parade among his most cherished childhood memories. “My father took us from early on, then there wasn’t enough room in the car to get all the kids in,” he said.
As a teenager, Smith was also a product of the parade, having marched in it as a high schooler at Iona Prep.
The renowned top hat that Smith will wear for his grand marshal duty “is your typical top hat,” he said, one that’s “been in the family” since his great-grandfather wore it nearly nine decades ago. “It’s a top hat worn once, about to be twice,” he said.
It is a hat the great-grandson will wear with pride. “My hope is that my head doesn’t swell too much,” Smith quipped.
