New York Knicks parade brings generations of fans into the streets

NEW YORK (AP) — New York is celebrating the Knicks in classic style Thursday, throwing a ticker-tape parade for the team that brought home the NBA championship longed for by generations of fans.

The Knicks’ victory — after a 53-year drought — has electrified New Yorkers. Thousands of fans have flooded into lower Manhattan for the parade, and police said all the viewing pens along the route were full less than three hours before the procession.

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Still, people kept streaming into the area on crammed subways, looking to get as close as they could or find any elevated spot to catch a glimpse. Fans lined up on the pedestrian walkway over the Brooklyn Bridge, where they were not close enough to see the parade or the ceremony at City Hall but would be close enough to hear it over loudspeakers.

The parade was set to start at 10 a.m. Thursday near Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan and head up Broadway on the skyscraper-flanked route dubbed the “Canyon of Heroes.” The parade began just after 10:30 a.m.

The mile-long procession (1.6 kilometers) ends at City Hall, where the players are to get another traditional tribute: keys to the city.

“There will be performances, there will be New Yorkers, there will be the team and there will be history,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Monday.

Knicks fans turn out in force

Several blocks away from the parade route, fans stood shoulder to shoulder — sometimes on each other’s shoulders — hoping to catch a glimpse of the procession between buildings. Others climbed on traffic lights, sanitation trucks or knicks-colored blue and orange buckets they’d brought from home.

“I had to be here today,” said Shareefa Wallace, 34, who got up at 3 a.m. to make her way from suburban Long Island. She grew up in the city going to Knicks games, and she sported the souvenir jersey of one of the legends from that era, Patrick Ewing.

She arrived at 7 a.m., too late to get into one of the viewing pens, but “we have to soak up what she can get,” said Wallace, a school psychologist who was on summer break.

‘The New York vibe’

Nearby bars and delis filled with fans, some wishing they’d arrived at dawn. But many seemed at peace with the fact that they would only experience the parade from a distance.

“We’re fine with the fray, we just want to be with the New York energy and the New York vibe,” said Jean Strong, who came to the parade from Harlem with his nephew and sister.

Terrell Emerson, a chef who grew up in Queens before leaving New York, said he’d driven from Maryland with his daughter Madison – named in honor of the Knicks home arena, Madison Square Garden.

Madison, beaming, held a handwritten sign announcing she’d skipped her fifth-grade graduation to be in attendance.

“It’s been 53 years — come on. That was a no-brainer,” Emerson said.

Stars and Knicks legends

Knicks legends Walt “Clyde” Frazier — a member of the ’70s champion teams — and Ewing are expected to participate in the parade, according to a person familiar with the plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the details before they were publicly announced. The person said Mike Breen, the Knicks’ play-by-play announcer on MSG Network, was set to emcee the City Hall ceremony.

Alicia Keys, the singer who collaborated with Jay-Z on the New York-loving 2009 hit “Empire State of Mind,” has been tapped to perform.

“How could I not?” Keys said Wednesday in a social media video that featured her on the phone with Knicks forward OG Anunoby.

A parade decades in the making

The mere fact that the parade is happening is historic in itself. Although the Knicks won the championship twice in the 1970s, the city didn’t host a parade for them either time. Then-Mayor John Lindsay had cut down on ticker-tape extravaganzas for financial and other reasons, and he instead honored the Knicks at a 1970 reception at the mayoral mansion and a jam-packed 1973 ceremony outside City Hall.

This time, the city is going all out. A police officer could be seen holding a sign reading, “This is really happening.”

And a massive security operation

Police plan to deploy 10,000 officers to secure the event, which follows ebullient but sometimes chaotic street celebrations and some violence during the Knicks’ run to victory over the San Antonio Spurs.

At one point before the parade, a small group of people were crushed against a barrier near Fulton Street, a key subway hub, pinned between a swelling crowd and a group of police officers shoving the barrier to keep fans penned in.

Some 650 sanitation workers have been assigned to clean up what could be tens of thousands of pounds (kilograms) of debris, if recent history is any guide.

Why does New York throw ticker-tape parades?

Ticker-tape parades derive their name from the narrow strips of paper used by telegraph-era “stock ticker” machines. New York brokerage firm workers took to tossing the paper out their office windows during parades in the late 19th century, adding a swirling aerial spectacle to the festivities.

Over the years, especially up to the mid-1960s, the city rolled out ticker-tape parades to honor visiting foreign leaders, mark historic anniversaries and hail feats in aviation, war, sports, music, space travel and more.

The Knicks’ parade will be the 210th, and it comes after a ticker-tape bash for the WNBA’s New York Liberty in 2024.