NY Liberty carried the torch high through the Canyon of Heroes.
Thousands of New Yorkers gathered in lower Manhattan on Thursday to watch the much-anticipated ticker-tape parade celebrating the WNBA team's first championship.
The huge, seafoam-covered party begins at 10 a.m. and features floats, music, 3,000 pounds of confetti, Liberty mascot Ellie the Elephant, and, of course, the WNBA champion himself, and features Broadway's Climbed the Canyon of Heroes.
One particularly excited group of spectators was a group of 11 Liberty season ticket holders, children and parents from Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.
Children skipped school field trips to museums to watch the Liberty Ticker Tape Parade, joining the city's estimated crowd of 10,000 people.
Elsa Rowley, 10, standing next to her mother Angela, said: “The Museum of Fine Arts and Design Museum will probably be open for the next 50 years, but we may never see a ticker tape parade again. I don't want to.'' Carola, 43 years old.
Kayla Alexander, 29, of Islip, New York, came with her sister Skye Alexander and nieces Zena Alexander, 6, and Athena Alexander, 8, and said, “School It's my reward for studying hard and being a little fan of Die Hard.” , those participating in the Liberty Basketball Clinic.
“We take our kids to games all the time. I wish my parents had taken me to places like this when we were little,” Kayla added. Ta. “This is our first caption parade.”
Caitlin Rocco, 22, a lifelong Liberty fan from Fresh Meadows, Queens, was also spotted along the parade route with her boyfriend James Cook, 23, and brother Colin Cook, 19. It was done.
“I've been going to Liberty Fun since I was born, and I wasn't going to miss this,” she said, wrapped up in a new CVS blanket she bought for the unexpectedly cold weather.
The Downtown Alliance, which supports the city-led event, told the newspaper that more than 100 bags of confetti were distributed to buildings along Broadway and fell from windows, rooftops and streets.
Hundreds of sanitation workers were already taking part in the parade Thursday morning ahead of the main event cleaning, which is expected to take about three hours.
The Liberty captured their first WNBA championship in 28 seasons with a heartbreaking 67-62 overtime victory over the Minnesota Lynx in Game 5 on Sunday at their home arena, Barclays Center.
The ticker tape parade is the first in history to celebrate a local women's sports team, and the first in more than a decade to honor a local sports team since the New York Giants won the Super Bowl in 2012.
The last ticker tape parade in the Big Apple will be the 2021 Hometown Heroes Parade to celebrate front-line workers who have struggled during the coronavirus pandemic, and the last ticker tape parade to honor sports teams will be in 2019. It was held by the US women's soccer team after the establishment of FIFA. Winning the Women's World Cup.
A private, ticketed ceremony for the WNBA champions will be held at noon on City Hall Square. Celebrations will continue late tonight in Brooklyn, with a party and ceremony at Barclays Center from 7 to 10 p.m.
“This moment means everything, not just to the Liberty organization, but to our fans and all of New York City,” New York Liberty CEO Keir Clark said in a statement announcing the celebration. .
“The Liberty has been chasing this dream since 1997, and after a five-year strategic rebuild driven by the owner's vision to rebuild and regrow this historic team, we have returned to first place and become New York's “I'm proud to win the championship,” Clark added.
“We take great pride in what we've built with our fans, something special that goes far beyond the basketball court, and this moment is just as much for them as it is for us. is.”
