Throngs of Knicks fans surge into Lower Manhattan to witness historic parade

For more than half a century, New York waited for a Knicks championship.

The end of that drought was officially celebrated Thursday with confetti and a trip down the Canyon of Heroes in what was possibly the largest parade in the city’s history.

Crowds swarmed Lower Manhattan, filling the designated parade viewing pens hours before the Knicks, NBA champions for the first time since 1973, rolled up Broadway in their first-ever ticker-tape parade.

The sidewalks were packed shoulder to shoulder and people clambered onto every possible surface — lampposts, ledges, scaffolding, roofs and windows — to see the champions, turning the area into a sea of blue and orange. Fans along the parade route waved flags and pom poms and showed off their best Knicks merch.

Thousands more were trapped behind police barricades, still hoping to catch a glimpse of the parade. On one street, dozens had climbed on top of a sanitation truck hoping for a view.

Residents and office workers — or at least the ones who made it in — threw confetti and rolls of toilet paper from their windows, showering the parade below in a New York tradition dating back more than 100 years.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a lifelong Knicks fan, attended the parade on a float, alongside OG Anunoby, Karl-Anthony Towns and Gov. Kathy Hochul. Mamdani threw T-shirts into the crowds and videotaped the historic moment on an old camcorder.

During his speech at City Hall, the mayor said New Yorkers are used to coming together in hard times, but to unite in celebration was a rare treat. He cited Game 4 specifically as a comeback story for all of New York City.

"The Knicks are down 20. The analytics guys, the sports betting companies, the pundits who watch from far away, they do what they do. They run the numbers. They calculate the odds. They write the Knicks off. They give the Spurs a 99.6% chance of winning the game,” he said. “But there is one thing that the pundits just don't get about this team, that they just don't get about this city. It is in that point-four percent that we go to work."

Many attendees arrived even before the sun had come up. Among them was 8-year-old Corie Jackson, who was most excited to see Jalen Brunson. She was joined by her dad and her older brother, all of whom woke up by 4:45 a.m. so they could secure a spot to watch. They were among the first in line to go through a checkpoint at Broad Street and Exchange Place.

Patricia Macklinlee, her family — and her dog, Diamond, a yorkie with one ear dyed orange and the other blue — took the first ferry over from Staten Island at 5:30 a.m.

“The last-ticker tape parade I saw was when the Yankees won the series … I was working on Broadway and Chambers by the mayor's office and I couldn't go,” Macklinlee said. “But today is history. I'm here.”

As crowds grew, some fans decided they wouldn’t be able to make it to the parade after all.

Ken Smith had traveled to New York from Pennsylvania. He was 12 years old the last time the Knicks won a championship.

“We were going to come to the parade no matter when they won,” he said.

But after taking an Uber to the parade and realizing he wasn't going to get to see anything, he found himself walking along FDR Drive between the heliport and the Staten Island Ferry Terminal.

“We're just kind of heading back, wandering around, enjoying the day,” he said. “We were high-fiving people and it's pretty cool.”

Tom Groves, 47, also found himself on FDR Drive along with his 13-year-old son, Hunter.

They got off the ferry at 7:45 a.m. and realized they couldn’t get anywhere near Bowling Green or Wall Street.

“It was already mobbed,” Groves said. “We had a good time. We had our Knicks shirts on. We reveled with the crowd for a little bit. We had a little breakfast. Now we're heading home.”

Thousands of people also surrounded City Hall, where the parade concluded with a ceremony. The plaza had been transformed into a performance space with 4,000 seats. It was one of the largest events ever staged there, comparable to the crowd that attended Mamdani’s inauguration.

The ceremony began around 12:30 p.m., but State Sen. Zellnor Myrie didn’t take any chances in securing a good seat.

“I left my house at 5:15,” Myrie said. “The train was packed, energy high. I feel amazing. It’s gonna be one of the best days of my life.”

“There’s no better place to throw a party than in the capital of the world,” he added.

Banners for the team, including their jersey numbers, were hung on City Hall— with one glaring error. Dillon Jones was listed as 33, a number that has long been retired for Patrick Ewing. Jones wore No. 1 on the court for the Knicks.

All of the city's citywide elected officials, along with City Council Speaker Julie Menin, had a turn at the lectern. But in an unusual turn, they kept their remarks short.

In his speech, Mamdani spoke to the long wait fans have endured for this moment.

“ We waited as the memory of Willis Reed winning the championship on one leg grew fainter and fainter,” he said. “We waited as Clyde came up clutch again and again. As John Starks dunked on Jordan and Patrick Ewing dunked on the Pacers. As Bernard King scored 60.”

He kept going, name-checking Charles Oakley, Allan Houston, Larry Johnson and on and on.

“ We waited without ever knowing if this day would come, and we waited because we knew deep down in our sick, suffering hearts that it would,” he said.

James Dolan, the Knicks owner, dressed in his signature tangerine suit jacket, spoke after the mayor and was greeted with jeers. The two men have long been ideologically opposed, but more recently had clashed over a watch party outside Madison Square Garden that Dolan canceled, blaming the mayor for restricting its size.

Mamdani had previously said they had spoken and cleared the air, but Dolan appeared to aim a dig at the mayor.

“Look, I don't need your vote. I don't need to quote to you, right?” he said, seemingly referring to Mamdani’s remarks on Knicks greats through the years. “Because if you're real Knick fans, you know it already.”

Dolan cast himself the arbiter of genuine Knicks fans earlier this month when he said Mamdani was "not a real Knicks fan" despite his long, documented allegiance to the team.

Once the speeches had ended, Alicia Keys, dressed in a black leather jacket with New York emblazoned across the front, sang “Empire State of Mind,” the city’s unofficial anthem. Throngs of people stood and waved their hands in unison as she closed out the ceremony and the fever dream of the past weeks.

Brigid Bergin contributed reporting.

This story was updated multiple times during and after the parade.