New York City Comes out Strong to Celebrate Their NY Knicks as Champions

Fans arrived before dawn to cheer Jalen Brunson, OG Anunoby, Karl-Anthony Towns and their teammates as they ride from the park at the bottom of the island, known as the Battery, about a mile to City Hall. Some people paid hundreds of dollars to have line-waiters save spots for them.

At City Hall, Mayor Zohran Mamdani will present the Knicks with the keys to the city around noon. The crowd is so worked up outside City Hall that the national anthem singer’s sound check run-through drew cheers.

This is the city’s first ticker-tape parade since 2024, when the New York Liberty won the W.N.B.A. title, and the Knicks’ first such parade since the formation of the earth: Even though the team won championships in 1970 and 1973, they were honored with much smaller receptions then.

Here’s what else to know:

• Transit: Cars are banned from Lower Manhattan during the parade. Some subway stations are closed in Lower Manhattan, though others remain in operation. The City Hall ceremony is open only to ticket-holders. Read more ›

• Security: After significant numbers of Knicks supporters behaved very poorly during the N.B.A. finals — there were dozens of arrests, and fans set fire to buses, trashed police cars and committed assaults on Saturday when the Knicks won the title — security is tight. More than 10,000 officers are patroling the parade, the most ever assigned to a planned event in the city, the police said.

• Not actual ticker-tape: Ticker-tape was the paper used by teletype machines that reported stock prices in days of old. It has not been thrown at parades since the 1960s. Instead, there will be confetti created by shredding 2,500 pounds of recycled paper.

• No break from school: The city’s public schoolchildren are getting a bit of a raw deal. Not only is school being held as usual, but the statewide high school exams known as the Regents are still taking place.

• Dolan and Mamdani: There will be the opportunity for an awkward moment, or perhaps a warm reconciliation, between the mayor and the Knicks’ mercurial owner, James Dolan, who will also attend. During the finals, Mr. Dolan called Mr. Mamdani and his police commissioner “New York City’s biggest party poopers” because of the tight security they ordered around Madison Square Garden, the Knicks’ home arena.

• White House visit: The Knicks have accepted an invitation to celebrate at the White House, Mr. Dolan, a longtime friend of President Trump, said in a radio interview on Wednesday. The Knicks would be the first N.B.A. team to visit the White House during Mr. Trump’s tenure.

• Everyone’s favorite brand: Companies — including some with no ties to New York or basketball — have posted memes, changed their avatars to Knicks blue and orange, and cheered the team in their captions. Read more ›

• How to watch: In the New York area, the parade is being carried on many TV channels, including ABC 7 New York, NBC 4 New York, CBS News New York, MSG Network, Fox5NY and My9/WWOR. Online, it is being shown on the city’s YouTube channel, Facebook page, and X account, FOX5NY.com’s live page, and on NBA TV….