Giants Set for Ticker-Tape Parade

Call it Super Super Tuesday. New York City will hold the rare distinction of hosting a presidential primary and a ticker-tape parade for the Super Bowl-winning Giants on the same day.Mayor Bloomberg said that tomorrow was the only practical date for celebrating the Giants’ historic 17-14 upset over the New England Patriots because players were in transit today and would start dispersing “to the four corners of the Earth” on Wednesday.He added that the parade might make primary day even more special.“The most special part is democracy … that we have the ability to vote and be in charge of our destiny,” Mr. Bloomberg said today. “But if it takes a sporting event to remind you of that, what’s great about America, so be it.”The event will mark the city’s first ticker-tape parade since the Yankees last won the World Series, in 2000.The parade will begin at the tip of lower Manhattan in Battery Park and proceed north on Broadway, going past the financial district and the site of the World Trade Center before finishing at City Hall Park. The stretch is known as the “Canyon of Heroes,” where ticker-tape parades celebrating everything from Charles Lindbergh’s Atlantic flight to sports championships have been held.The Giants will be showered with some 50 tons of confetti, and Mr. Bloomberg will give team officials the key to the city after the parade.All the while, New Yorkers will be casting their ballots for president. New York and the 23 other Super Tuesday states are holding primaries that could collectively seal the fates of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates.A spokeswoman for the city Board of Elections said there are three lower Manhattan polling places along the parade route. She said police would help voters at those sites clear a path through the revelers.A New York Police Department spokesman, Paul Browne, said thousands of extra uniformed and plainclothes officers would be on duty tomorrow. They will line the parade route and will be assigned to all polling places.In New York’s Democratic primary, Senator Clinton has home-field advantage and is expected to defeat Senator Obama. On the Republican side, Senator McCain is leading a former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney, in New York.But could the Giants’ long-shot win give hope to the underdogs?A Hunter College political scientist, Kenneth Sherrill, said the parade could in fact hurt Mr. Obama’s turnout because his supporters are disproportionately young and male — the same groups that are likely to celebrate a football win — while Mrs. Clinton does well with women and older voters.“The Obama campaign has to be more concerned that the parade will have an impact,” he said.The ticker-tape parade will be the first in New York for the Giants, who won Super Bowls after the 1986 and 1990 seasons and celebrated in New Jersey, where they play.The decision to hold this year’s parade in New York was made jointly by the city and the team.“I am not going to deny these players the opportunity to have a motorcade through the Canyon of Heroes,” team co-owner John Mara said. “There was no way I was going to deny these players and coaches after all they accomplished to have that kind of parade. That’s a once in a lifetime thing.”The decision to hold the parade in New York annoyed some politicians in New Jersey, but they will get their celebration later in the day at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford.

Giants Set for Ticker-Tape Parade

Giants Set for Ticker-Tape Parade

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