The City That Never Sleeps had good reason to be up all night on Wednesday. On the eve of the Knicks' tickertape parade to celebrate their NBA Championship win, some New Yorkers began holding their spots before the bars had even closed for the night. Others stayed in hotel rooms right off the parade route so they could roll out of bed and into the scrum, while others boarded trains from New Jersey, Long Island, and Westchester as early as two or three a.m. to get to Battery Park City in time.
Many of them didn't.
One of the consequences of having one of the most electric postseason runs in recent memory is that lots of people get swept up in it. Even more so when the team making that run exists in one of the largest cities in the country and hasn't won a championship in 53 years. The NYPD commissioner expected attendance to be in the millions and the NYPD deployed more than 10,000 police officers, which was the most officers deployed for any such event.
So even though fans knew they needed to get to lower Manhattan hours before the parade's 10 a.m. start time, and even earlier than the scheduled opening of the viewing pens at 6 a.m., many fans were never able to get close enough to Broadway to eventually see the Knicks and varied New York celebrities drive by them on floats.
While some left, frustrated and disappointed, the vast majority stayed. The NYPD erected additional barricades, eventually creating at least three separate layers of celebration in lower Manhattan. Fans packed Church Street and West Broadway, knowing there was no chance they would catch even the slightest glimpse of Jalen Brunson or Jose Alvarado. But they would see each other. They would see thousands like them, decked out in Knicks shirts, hats, and jerseys, some of which barely fit and looked as if they had been worn yearly since the Knicks' previous heyday in the 1990s. Being together one more time was reason enough to push deeper into the crowd because the city had been energized by that togetherness for weeks.
"Over these past weeks, as the Knicks kept winning, our city has come together as one," said New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani at the City Hall ceremony following the parade. "Neighbors invited neighbors over. Strangers high-fived one another in the street. Subway conductors sang their announcements, and bus drivers danced behind the wheel. So often when this city comes together, it is because we are forced to by a moment of tragedy or adversity. What a gift it is to be brought together by pure, unfiltered joy."
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The joy was seen everywhere on the street, whether it was a group of elementary school boys, all decked out in Knicks jerseys, dancing to music playing from one of their mom's phones, or the sporadic chants of "Jalen Brunson" and "Knicks in five" that reverberated through the lower Manhattan buildings. A six-year-old girl, decked out in a tiara and a sash that read "Today is my birthday," prompted shouts of "Happy Birthday" from anybody who walked past.
The creativity and ingenuity of New York City were all over the streets as well. An artist carried his own painting of Jalen Brunson and prompted chants whenever he climbed on anything and held it aloft. Dozens of people pulled wagons filled with knockoff t-shirts for sale. One photographer put up his own NBA Finals backdrop to take photos for people, free of charge, and a barber even set up shop in the middle of Church Street, giving haircuts to anybody willing to plop down onto the concrete.
Many of these fans had waited for so long to celebrate their team winning a title that they had no plans to go home, regardless of where they wound up standing. They had been through too much.
"For 53 long years we have watched, and we have waited," said Mayor Mamdani. "We have watched from nosebleeds through gritted teeth, on televisions in the windows of electronic stores, and from projectors balanced on fire escapes. We have watched alone in our apartments with our heads in our hands, shoulder to shoulder at bars where the signal flickers, alongside friends and family who we wish more than anything could be here today sharing this moment."
For many, sharing that moment with the people closest to them mattered more than seeing the players themselves on a float.
One couple walked past with the father wearing his infant son on his chest in a Baby Bjorn. They had no intention of fighting their way to the front. "I just wanted him to experience this," the father said. "So that he has a photo in case it never happens again."
Another couple politely pleaded with a police officer to see if there was any way through the barricade. The husband is a mailman from New Jersey who took the day off work to come to the parade. Both he and his wife were decked out in oversized blue chains with Knicks logos dangling from the bottom. When the police officer told him that, as far as she knew, all the pens were full and there was nowhere else to go, they smiled and thanked her. "We've got the whole day," the husband said. "We'll make the most of it."
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A family made the trek down from Washington Heights together despite their two kids both going to schools that had announced they were going to show the parade on TV. They made it down to the Fulton Street station by 7:45 a.m., but the crowd was so massive that they couldn't even get through the turnstiles to exit the station. Instead, they turned around, took the train back uptown one stop to Canal Street, and walked back on foot. There was not an ounce of regret.
"I'd rather be here than watching at school," said their 10-year-old daughter. "Everybody would be talking through it. I'd rather be there with all the people."
Who she's with seemed to matter a lot. She had watched Game 5 of the NBA Finals with her 78-year-old grandmother, who was at the infamous Willis Reed Game back in 1970. At the time, her grandmother had just gotten married, and took her wedding money and went down to Madison Square Garden to buy tickets to the NBA Finals. She was able to buy tickets for all home games except Game 7, which she eventually bought off a scalper, paying $25 per ticket for a ticket that was $7.50 face value.
Those are the Knicks fans who were top of mind for many at the celebration, including the players themselves.
"We waited as the memory of Willis Reed winning the championship on one leg grew fainter and fainter," said Mayor Mamdani after the parade. "We waited as Clyde [Frazier] came up clutch again and again, as John Starks dunked on [Michael] Jordan and Patrick Ewing dunked on the Pacers, as Bernard King scored 60 as Charles Oakley pulled every rebound within reach, as Spike [Lee] got in Reggie Miller's face as Alan Houston put up a shot against Miami that hung in the air for an eternity as Larry Johnson gave us the four point play heard around New York..."
Yet, even when you glanced around the mass of fans, the jerseys on their backs weren't filled with the typical names. Yes, there were plenty of Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Josh Hart jerseys. There were also dozens of Patrick Ewing, Carmelo Anthony, Walt Frazier, and Willis Reed jerseys, but many fans also proudly wore the names of Knicks players who had never been part of contending teams. Names like Wilson Chandler, Iman Shumpert, Jeremy Lin, Kristaps Porzingis, Jamal Crawford, Obi Toppin, and Stephon Marbury were printed across people's backs. The failed promise that came with names like Larry Johnson, Latrell Sprewell, Allen Houston, Julius Randle, and RJ Barrett was also present on countless jerseys because those players and seasons mattered as much to these fans as the one they had just witnessed.
"We are here not just because of this team that will go down in New York City legend," echoed Mayor Mamdani. "I'm talking about guys like Renaldo Balkman, Marty Collins, Raymond Felton, Marcus Camby, Kristaps Porzingis, Iman Shumpert, and the whole mixtape era. I'm talking about guys like Tony Douglas, who I watched tie the single-game franchise record for threes from the stands in 2011. I'm talking about Amari [Stoudemire], who got this whole city fired up when he joined. I'm talking about Jared Jeffries and Lance Thomas and Langston Galloway, players who gave everything every game, even when a 20-win season was all that was in sight."
It's a history that most Knicks fans at the parade wear like a badge of honor, and a history that made this celebration feel that much sweeter. But the history of New York City was also a big part of the way the city planned the parade itself.
There was persistent criticism online about choosing to have the parade in the Canyon of Heroes despite the likelihood that millions of people would try to show up and overwhelm downtown Manhattan. Yet, in addition to not wanting to shutdown midtown Manhattan on a workday, there are historic reasons why the city chose to use the Canyon of Heroes route. It's the same route that was used in 1886 for an impromptu parade to celebrate the arrival of the Statue of Liberty from France, which was the first-ever ticker-tape parade. Three years later, a parade was held in the same spot to celebrate the Centennial of George Washington's inauguration. Since then, the same route has been used in New York City, not only to celebrate championships for the Yankees, Giants, Rangers, Liberty, and US Women's National Soccer team, but also to honor presidents like Theodore Roosevelt, Olympic athletes in 1924 returning from the Paris Games, Charles Lindbergh after the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight, essential workers after COVID-19, and many more.
It's a path that honors the present while also celebrating the achievements of the past. Much like the Knicks players did on Thursday. So, yes, the parade wasn't perfect. It was chaotic, claustrophobic, and messy. It was also energetic, invigorating, and welcoming. The perfect dichotomy to represent its city and the residents who just wanted to experience any sliver of the excitement.
"I did it," said a young woman on the J train as it rose from underground and started to traverse across the Williamsburg Bridge. "I came, and I saw, and I almost conquered. But I was there." At the end of the day, being there, however close "there" actually was, was all that mattered.
Kurt Helin
