NEW YORK — New York City is gearing up for what could be a record-breaking celebration on Thursday, as a ticker-tape parade winds through Lower Manhattan honoring the NBA champion New York Knicks — a franchise that had not won a title in over half a century.
The Knicks put together a remarkable postseason run, winning 15 of their final 16 playoff games before defeating the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 in Game 5 of the NBA Finals last Saturday. The victory ended a 53-year championship drought for the team, sending fans pouring into the streets across all five boroughs of the city in spontaneous celebration.
The parade is set to kick off at 10 a.m. near the southern tip of Manhattan, making its way to City Hall. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who predicted the event could draw the largest crowd in the city’s parade history, said he will present the team with symbolic keys to the city at the conclusion of the route.
Security will be heavy. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, estimating attendance could reach into the millions, has deployed 10,000 officers to Lower Manhattan. The organized event stands in contrast to the unruly celebrations that erupted Saturday night, when a 17-year-old was shot in the foot and a World Cup shuttle bus was set ablaze.
Knicks owner James Dolan announced that singer-songwriter Alicia Keys will perform for the crowds. After Saturday’s clinching win, viral videos captured fans flooding the streets and singing her 2009 hit “Empire State of Mind,” which she recorded with fellow New Yorker Jay-Z and has become an unofficial anthem for the city.
“For more than 50 years, New Yorkers have waited for this moment. Through near misses, heartbreak and a hope that every year could be our year, this city never stopped believing in the Knicks,” Mayor Mamdani said in a statement released Saturday.
New York’s ticker-tape parade tradition stretches back 140 years, beginning spontaneously in 1886 when office workers in the Financial District tossed stock ticker tape from their windows to mark the unveiling of the Statue of Liberty. Today, confetti has replaced the old paper tape.
The Downtown Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving Lower Manhattan, has distributed 2,500 pounds — roughly 1,134 kilograms — of shredded paper to 22 buildings along the parade route. Building tenants will shower the passing players and coaches with confetti from above.
Andrew Breslau, senior vice president for communications at the Downtown Alliance, offered some practical advice: “We advise not to throw it in big clumps and meter it out for the whole parade.”
Mayor Mamdani has also directed that city-owned buildings be lit up in the Knicks’ signature orange-and-blue colors on parade day. The subway station at Madison Square Garden has already been repainted in those colors, and even the city’s fiscal watchdog incorporated the team’s colors into charts in its most recent financial report.
Meanwhile, hundreds of New Yorkers have signed petitions asking officials to postpone citywide science exams scheduled for Thursday, so students can attend the parade. “A Knicks championship is history in the making,” one petition stated. “Our children, who are the heartbeat of this city’s future and its biggest fans, deserve to be part of that history.”
