Knicks in '26: Parade of the Century

In the euphoria immediately following the Knicks' chef's kiss on one of the most remarkable championship runs I'll ever witness, I had multiple friends insist that we attend the ensuing parade parade up Broadway. I mostly didn't want to do it. At my age I'm prefectly comfortable not doing crazy things anymore, but when the Knicks accomplish something you've spent most of your life thinking would never happen, well...

On Thursday morning I woke up before 4 AM to pick up the friend that I watched Game 4 with. We made our way to Hamilton, NJ where we would start the train leg of our trip. I expected the parade to be extremely crowded, but the scene at the Hamilton train station at 5 AM led me to believe that it would be even more crowded than that. We arrived at Penn Station by 6:30 AM and headed downtown on the C train. I heard from some Long Island friends that they managed to get on the same train as us. We planned to meet up near Fulton St.

As we got to the top of the steps after exiting the subway I realized how laughable my earlier estimates of crowd size were. This was Mardi Gras, a V-J Day parade, and New Year's Eve in Times Square all rolled into one. I've seen estimates of two million people attending the Knicks parade, but I can attest that there were far more than that in lower Manhattan for the festivities.

We began to trudge through the crowd and attempted to head down Nassau St. After more than 30 minutes we had moved roughly 200 feet and heard from people moving on the opposite direction that security was no longer letting anyone in at the nearest checkpoint. The Long Island contingent was close to that checkpoint, because they took the long way on a parallel block. We wised up and did the same, finally meeting up with them about 20 minutes later.

A rendevous with friends I've known for well over 25 years (and three new friends I was meeting for the first time) was a welcome experience, but it was nearing 8 AM and we had to get down to business. We decided to continue down streets parallel to Broadway to see if there was any way to get closer to the parade route. That kicked off a series of false starts and eventually the realization that we would be lucky to catch any glimpse we could of the parade.

By 9 AM we had made it all the way down to Battery Park, near the beginning of the parade route and found a spot with a clear line of sight to where the floats would turn onto Broadway...albeit about 500 feet away. We set up shop there while crowds continued to pile in. Entertainment came in the form of people climbing statues, trees, scaffolding, and light posts to get a better view. Of course, that was coupled with loud New Yorkers being loud New Yorkers, which is always entertaining. As we got closer to 10 AM (the scheduled start of the parade), coach buses and ambulances began to drive down the closed off portion of the street we were standing on. This forced an already crowded street to get even tighter on the edges and agitated the masses even more. To feel better, I told myself that those buses must have been carrying the players to their floats, even thought the only people I actually saw on them was the Knicks City Dancers.

The parade finally started about a half hour late and we saw three or four floats pass by, not really being able to make out who was actually on them. The crowd around us roared anyway. We then made a last ditch effort to get a better view of ...anything. We meandered through the park and first got an excellent view of the Statue of Liberty, immediately followed by a roar from the crowd on the opposite side of the park. There, we were able to see the float carrying Jalen Brunson and his contingent, with a slightly better view than we had previously (I got ZERO clear pictures of this as I was standing on a rounded marble wall behind a tree).

Next, we tried our best to get out of lower Manhattan and to a place where we could watch (on TV) the ceremony to take place later at City Hall. To accomplish this, we essentially re-traced our steps back to Fulton St to catch the subway. This time, the walk through the dense crowds was much more enjoyable. Collectively, the disappointment of not being able to see the parade up close had worn off, and millions of Knicks fans were just happy to be there, taking in the championship atmosphere. From Fulton St., we headed to Spring St. hopeful to cool our heels at a bar on the west side I had scoped out in advance, one I had assumed was far enough uptown to not be too crowded after the parade. This was not a unique idea! We found the bar packed to the gills, overflowing onto the street.

Just like our beloved Knicks, we adjusted quickly. After a quick subway ride to get us close to Penn Station, one of my old friends from Long Island suggested Goldie's Tavern, a sports bar just a few blocks from the Garden. It was worth a shot. As we got near the entrance to Goldie's, I noticed an inordinately tall figure wearing an orange t-shirt heading in the opposite direction. As he walked past us, I became 99.9% sure that it was John Wallace, former first round draft pick of the New York Knicks. In hindsight, I should have flagged him down and asked to take a picture with him. In reality, I just wondered what he was doing so far north of the festivities downtown and headed into the tavern.

We walked in just as the mayor was wrapping up his speech at City Hall and transitioning over to the Knicks owner. A server walked up to us immediately and asked how many for a table. With a chuckle, I said seven, expecting some kind of ridiculous wait time that would have us turn around and find someplace else. Instead, she said there was an open table for us in the back corner and apologized for it being tucked in the back. At last, a stroke of luck! This was great on two accounts. We could all use a bathroom for the first time since dawn, and come back to an open table having missed everything James Dolan had to say.

For the next hour we settled in with some lunch, a round of beers, and enjoyed the best part of the championship ceremony in a barroom full of Knicks fans. We cheered loudly and often. We laughed a lot, partly because this group of friends, both old and new, are pretty funny, and partly because we were all sleep deprived. The conversation centered around the Knicks, their improbable run, the arduous decades it took to get there, and how our ridiculous morning had been well worth it. Before long, we were all back at Penn Station starting our treks home.

I can now look back and say it was too early and too crowded, and I was too far away to see anything meaningful. The people around us were either too loud, too crazy, or too obnoxious, or all three of those things at the same time. Getting around and finding a place to settle was too difficult. Everything was too expensive and my patience was wearing too thin before I even had lunch. Basically, it was the quintessential day in the city that never sleeps, and I loved every minute of it. I also never have to do it again. Go New York Go New York Go!