Giants Will Mark a Canyon of Heroes First
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Heads of state, baseball and hockey teams, and aviators and astronauts have all been honored with ticker-tape parades through the Canyon of Heroes, and today a football team will for the first time enjoy the deep-rooted city tradition.
About 50 tons of shredded paper is expected to rain down upon fans and members of the 2008 Super Bowl champions, the Giants, as the team travels up the storied Broadway route to City Hall for a ceremony to commemorate their win over the Patriots.
The parade marks the first victory march through the Canyon of Heroes for the Giants, a franchise that before Sunday’s upset victory had won the Super Bowl twice. The Yankees were the last New York team to receive the honor, after winning the World Series in 2000.
In preparation for the 11 a.m. parade, the city yesterday procured 1,000 pounds of shredded paper donated by a packing company in Brooklyn, Atlas Materials. The rest of the expected 49 tons of paper will likely come from the bowels of shredders belonging to companies along the route.
Following its first Super Bowl victory, in 1987, the team was denied the opportunity to hold a ticker-tape parade because Mayor Koch said he didn’t recognize the Giants as a New York team after their decision to move to New Jersey for a lucrative stadium deal.
In 1991, the Giants won the Super Bowl for a second time, but with the Gulf War weighing on the country, it was decided a parade would not be appropriate, an assistant commissioner of the New York City Department of Records, Kenneth Cobb, said.
Mr. Cobb, who did a majority of the research for a brochure about ticker-tape parades published by the Alliance for Downtown New York, said today will mark at least the 203rd ticker-tape celebration to pass through the Canyon of Heroes. He said he has discovered two new parades since the brochure was printed, so he can no longer be sure of an exact number. With primary elections taking place today as well, the police department plans to make use of extra resources, such as a counterterrorism team that is deployed for many large events, the police department’s deputy commissioner, Paul Browne, said.
Not counting a practice-run ticker-tape parade in 2002, held to boost the city’s chances for a 2012 Olympic bid, today’s parade is the first to take place during the Bloomberg administration.
