NEW YORK, June 18 (Reuters) - Delirious New York Knicks fans flooded the streets of Lower Manhattan on Thursday for a ticker-tape parade celebrating the newly crowned NBA champions, capping a dream season more than five decades after the team last won a title.
The stretch of Broadway known as the "Canyon of Heroes" was a sea of orange and blue, as throngs of people gathered in the pre-dawn hours — with some camping out overnight — to secure a spot behind police barricades for what Mayor Zohran Mamdani said could be the largest parade in the city's history.
The Knicks' dominant run through the NBA playoffs electrified this sports-mad city that had grown used to falling short year after year. The team's 15-3 playoff record featured a number of improbable comebacks, culminating with Saturday's victory in Game 5 of the NBA Finals over the San Antonio Spurs that ended its 53-year title drought.
Trip Kesler, a Long Island native who lives in Florida, flew to Virginia to meet her brother before they drove north for the parade. The two secured a prime spot along the parade route after waking up at 3 a.m.
"We love our team," the 35-year-old Kesler said, wearing an orange-and-blue Knicks hat that her 64-year-old mother knitted for the occasion. Her dad told her mother every year for decades that the Knicks would win, she added.
"And we did it this year," she said. "I was locked in since Game One of the finals. I knew who was gonna win."
The viewing pens were already full three hours before the parade kicked off, the New York police department said.
Knicks players basked in the crowd's adulation as the parade set off from the southern tip of Manhattan at 10:32 a.m. EDT (1432 GMT) for the 2/3-mile (1.1 km) route to City Hall, where the team will receive symbolic keys to the city from Mamdani.
Karl-Anthony Towns, wearing a backwards Knicks hat and smoking a cigar, danced to the music with Mamdani on one float, while backup center Mitchell Robinson rode in one of his custom trucks.
At one point, NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Jalen Brunson stepped off his float and walked along the street carrying the golden Larry O'Brien championship trophy as fans screamed his name.
Knicks stars of yesteryear joined the parade, including Walt "Clyde" Frazier, who helped lead the franchise to its two previous titles in 1970 and 1973, and Hall of Fame center Patrick Ewing. So too did celebrity fans, including movie director Spike Lee — a courtside presence at Madison Square Garden for decades — actor Timothee Chalamet, and lifestyle guru Martha Stewart.
Singer-songwriter Alicia Keys will serenade the revelers. Viral videos following the team's 94-90 clinching victory on Saturday showed hundreds of fans celebrating on the streets singing the 2009 hit "Empire State of Mind," an unofficial city anthem Keys recorded with a fellow New Yorker, rapper Jay-Z.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who estimated the crowd could number in the millions, ordered the deployment of 10,000 officers to the parade route, after Saturday's victory sparked sometimes chaotic celebrations in the streets across the city's five boroughs.
Mamdani ordered municipal buildings illuminated in the team's orange-and-blue colors for the parade, mirroring numerous landmarks on the city's skyline, which were lit up in Knicks colors throughout the playoffs.
New York's tradition of ticker-tape parades began spontaneously when the Statue of Liberty was unveiled in 1886 and office workers celebrated by throwing stock ticker tape used to print financial data out of their windows. When ticker tape became obsolete, it was replaced by confetti.
The Downtown Alliance, a nonprofit focused on improving Lower Manhattan, has delivered 2,500 pounds (1,134 kg) of shredded paper to 22 buildings along the route.
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