Thursday, October 1, 2026
New York City held a ticker-tape parade celebrating the Knicks’ NBA championship win over the San Antonio Spurs last week — the Knicks’ first title since their 1973 win over the Los Angeles Lakers.
Lower Manhattan was packed on June 18, with paradegoers clamoring for space along the route up Broadway from Battery Park to City Hall. Each Knicks player had his own float, atop which he and a group of team staff celebrated.
Star center Karl-Anthony Towns had a special guest on his float: Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who gave a speech congratulating the team at a ceremony at City Hall after the parade, where the team was presented with keys to the city.
Mamdani told the crowd that the oddsmakers had given the Spurs a 99.6 percent chance of winning Game 4 of the championship series. “A 99.6 percent chance of tying up the series 2-2 …,” the mayor said. “But there is one thing that the pundits don’t get about this city: It is in that .4 percent that we go to work.
“It’s in that .4 percent that the Knicks do what New Yorkers have always done when we are told that something is impossible,” Mamdani added. “We find a way. We win.”
Actor Timothée Chalamet, film director and Knicks superfan Spike Lee, and rapper Fat Joe were also on floats with the Knicks players.
According to city officials, the parade attracted a crowd of over 2 million, but when the estimates of the number who didn’t make it into the viewing area are included, the approximate totals were much larger. Among those in both categories were a number of Long Islanders, who took the LIRR into the city to support the team’s historic win.
Brothers Bryan and Christian Rosado, of Long Beach, made it into Manhattan by 6 a.m., but that wasn’t early enough for them to get a good view of the parade. But they said they appreciated the experience nonetheless.
“I’d love to say we stayed to watch the whole thing, but we really weren’t going to see much,” Bryan Rosado said. “It might have felt like hell on earth, but it was worth celebrating the Garden becoming Eden again.”
“The parade was an unorganized mess — it was so chaotic,” his brother said. “I still think being with so many other New Yorkers, laughing, chanting and celebrating, made it worth it.” The unity Christian described spread through the streets, and many Knicks fans were wearing Yankees and Mets caps as well.
Jacquelle Lainez, of Freeport, managed to get a better view than the Rosados. Her plans were also altered by how early paradegoers began gathering in Lower Manhattan. “My friend I was supposed to go with said her phone fell off her nightstand, lost power and died before her alarm could go off,” Lainez said. “I waited for her from 4 to 5:30 a.m., but after that I just went. It’s her loss.”
The unity was palpable on Church Street, parallel to the parade route. Fans who couldn’t get a view of the parade flooded the street, climbing on sanitation trucks, crowding subway entrances and climbing lampposts. Chants of “Knicks in 5!” “Let’s go Knicks!” and “Jalen Brunson” rang out regularly.
Even after the parade, Lower Manhattan was still full of Knicks fans buying shirts from street vendors, getting much-needed drinks at delis, and congratulating one another as if all were members of the team. New Yorkers’ connection to the Knicks was clearly as strong as it has been in decades.
