NEW YORK (AP) – Chinatown’s narrow streets overflowed with an estimated 300,000 people on Sunday as revelers greeted the Year of the Rooster with drums, dragons and dance troupes.

“We didn’t want to miss the parade,” said Arnaud Guillois, who works at the French mission to the United Nations and was watching from jam-packed Canal Street. “But it’s very crowded.”

Hannele Cotton, an Upper East Side resident, said her first Lunar New Year parade was “fantastic.”

“The dancers look like they’re having fun,” she said. “The kids are so cute.”

A marching band played “New York, New York” while a dragon held aloft by some two dozen dancers zigzagged. Children squealed as bursts of rainbow-hued confetti rained down on them.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, whose district includes Chinatown, led a contingent of elected officials.

“I’m proud to represent this community, this wonderful, great, growing community,” Silver said. “Have a happy New Year. Gung hay fat choy!”

Drawing visitors and shoppers back to the neighborhood has been a priority since the 2001 attack on the nearby World Trade Center made Chinatown inaccessible for months.

“The more events like this we have in Chinatown the better it is because it brings in tourists,” said parade volunteer Mimi Vuong, a Pace University student.

The year 4072 in the traditional Chinese calendar began Feb. 9 and was marked with celebrations in Asian communities around the world.