Knicks ticker-tape – New York is set to hold a ticker-tape parade for the Knicks’ NBA championship after a 53-year drought, with Mayor Zohran Mamdani calling it potentially among the biggest in city history. City police say the viewing pens were filled within three hours of the ro
New York will celebrate the Knicks in classic style on Thursday, throwing a ticker-tape parade for the team that brought home the NBA championship longed for by generations of fans.
The victory ended a 53-year drought, electrifying the city. Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the parade might be one of the biggest in New York’s history.
City police said all the viewing pens along the route were full less than three hours before the procession, packed by thousands of fans who flooded into the city.
That level of demand is part of what makes the moment feel historic. The Knicks won the championship twice in the 1970s, yet New York did not host a parade for either team. 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 jampacked 1973 ceremony outside City Hall.
This time, the city is going all out. “There will be performances, there will be New Yorkers, there will be the team and there will be history,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Monday.
The parade is set to start at 10 a.m. Thursday near Battery Park and head up Broadway along the skyscraper-flanked route dubbed the “Canyon of Heroes.” It is scheduled to end at City Hall, where the players will receive another traditional tribute: keys to the city.
Knicks legends Walt “Clyde” Frazier— a member of the ’70s champion teams— and Patrick 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. That same 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.
Early Thursday. Zellnor Myrie. a state senator and Knicks devotee. strolled through the plaza in front of City Hall. decked out in Knicks gear and sporting a huge smile. He said the win—coming after so many years of pain and futility—brought a feeling of generational catharsis to his family. especially his father.
“I remember calling him right after we won — because he’s out of the city now — and he said. ‘I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. ’” Myrie said. “And as he said that, I got so emotional and felt it. I think all of us have memories like that, and that’s why today’s so special.”.
As the city gears up for the celebrations, officials are also preparing for the crowd and its risks. 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.
“We want people to enjoy this moment,” Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a planning meeting Wednesday. “but public safety comes first.”
Sanitation workers are also being brought in at scale: 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.
Ticker-tape parades get their name from narrow strips of paper used by telegraph-era “stock ticker” machines. New York brokerage firm workers started 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 staged 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.
AP Basketball Writer Brian Mahoney contributed.
New York Knicks ticker-tape parade NBA championship Zohran Mamdani City Hall keys Canyon of Heroes Jessica Tisch 10 000 officers Alicia Keys OG Anunoby Walt Frazier Patrick Ewing Mike Breen Zellnor Myrie Sanitation workers