Mayor Zohran Mamdani Sets Knicks Championship Parade For Thursday

From Madison Square Garden to any and all blocks in the surrounding neighborhoods and boroughs, New York Knicks fans have been celebrating the New York Knicks’ first championship since 1973.

But with the win still fresh in New Yorkers’ minds, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has announced that the official ticker tape parade is scheduled for Thursday, June 18.

The parade kicks off at 10 a.m. near Lower Manhattan’s Battery Park. It will head north along Broadway through the Canyon of Heroes and end at City Hall, where Mayor Mamdani will present the championship-winning team with Keys to the City.

“For more than 50 years, New Yorkers have waited for this moment,” Mamdani said in a statement. “Through near misses, heartbreak, and a hope that every year could be our year, this city never stopped believing in the Knicks. And this team fulfilled that hope with grit, resilience, and heart — just like the five boroughs itself.”

After the team’s 1973 win, there was no celebration of this magnitude, so this will be the city’s first-ever parade for the Knickerbockers. Not only does Mamdani want to get it right, but he also wants to make sure everyone stays safe while celebrating.

“We’re going to take every precaution that this be a safe and joyous moment for New Yorkers because, as we all know, people have been waiting their entire lives for this,” the mayor said, adding that he thinks “it may well be the largest parade in New York City history.”

Knowing the hysteria the festivities might cause, he suggested that parade watchers arrive two hours before it kicks off, but he is well aware that many will show up way before then.

The parade will bring some organized chaos from Knicks fans, a welcome departure from the chaos they showed after each game of the finals. It culminated after Game 5 when 63 were arrested in Midtown after five school buses were set on fire, NYPD cars were damaged, and one teenager was shot.

A taxi was trampled in the melee, too, as video shows people stomping out the windshield. Bronx rapper French Montana asked X users to help locate the driver, “help him get back on his feet.”

See social media’s reactions to the Knicks beating the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals below.