If you happened to be in downtown Manhattan around 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, you might have thought that the first snowfall of the season had come early. But the white thingamabobs drifting down from the sky weren’t flakes, but confetti, and they were marking a historic occasion: The New York Liberty’s first-ever WNBA championship.
On October 20, the Liberty beat the Minnesota Lynx 67-62, clinching a historic victory and capping off a huge season for women’s basketball in the US. To celebrate, the city put on a traditional ticker tape parade—the first time a local women’s sports team was so honored, according to the Bergen Record. Hosted by Mayor Eric Adams, the parade also drew other famous faces, including New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and Gov. Kathy Hochul, per PBS, the star players themselves—and, of course, more fans than one person could count.
Thousands of people (one attendee, 40-year-old Omar Gonzalez, estimated to SELF that the number reached roughly 10 to 30K) descended upon downtown Manhattan to celebrate as a community and catch a glimpse of a favorite player or two. By 9:15 a.m., the Canyon of Heroes route stretching from Bowling Green to City Hall had been transformed into an ocean of black and seafoam green. There were Liberty hats, Liberty jerseys, Liberty T-shirts, Liberty sweatshirts, Liberty crewnecks, Statue of Liberty headpieces, even Liberty-themed stuffed animals. “I’ve been walking down this entire street and it’s just absolutely thick with people,” Rachael Burke, who wore a long black leather coat over a WNBA T-shirt, told SELF. “And it’s so moving to see how many people came out, how many different types of people it’s reaching.”
“It’s really unifying New York, and it’s a really beautiful thing,” she added.
Streets had been closed off, cops milled around, and sanitation workers stood by, ready to start the arduous cleanup process whenever the event was over. Chants rang out: “N-Y L-I-B-E-R-T-Y”; “Let’s go, Liberty”; “We all we need, we all we got.” Kids (and even some adults) climbed the metal skeleton of sidewalk scaffolding in search of a better vantage point. “It’s blood-pressure-rising,” Barry, 60, told SELF as he stood on one rail and held onto another for support, wearing a Liberty jersey over a checkered button-down. Several others said they felt like the charged atmosphere brought a much-needed vitality to the Big Apple. “The city needed this, you know, and I’m glad that it was a women’s [team] that was able to do it,” Lani Joseph, 28, who started watching the Liberty when fan favorite Sabrina Ionescu signed on, told SELF.
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