Ticker Tape Parade in NYC!
When a public event in NY that exists for about 130 years, only happened 5 times in the past 15 years, it’s worth taking the time to be there!
Ticker Tape Parade for the Yankees in 2008 (image by Pete Jelliffe )
Ticker tape parade
The area around Wall Street in New York City is called the Financial District. Most broker agencies that trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) used to have offices not too far away from 11 Wall Street, where the NYSE has their trading floor. Inside each of thee offices was a ticker machine. When the price of a stock changed, this telex-like device would update the new value, printed on a paper tape. This paper is the “ticker tape”. Even the current neon news banners on Times Square are shaped after those. So by the end of a typical day, a long paper tape would lay next to the telex machine.
When an event needed celebration, a parade was organized on Broadway. All companies would open the windows in their offices and trow these parts of paper over the parade. Hence the name Ticker Tape Parade. The first one happened in 1886, to celebrate the statue of liberty. The stretch of Broadway between Bowling Green and City hall is called Canyon of Heroes. And when you walk here, you can imagine the sky scrapers to be the sides of a canyon.
After the parade, a stone is inserted in the sidewalk to remember the Ticker Tape Parade. When you walk here, take the time to see what has been celebrated here. Sport victories, the end of wars, even the coronation of European kings and queens…
And this Friday we will have the fifth ticker tape parade in 15 years, when we’ll celebrate the US Women’s Soccer Team’s victory! I believe we all prefer to spend some tax money (1.5 million) in celebrating accomplishments than to pay for police stupidities.
Koen is a world traveler, documentary photographer and he’s a licensed tour guide in the city of New York. Would you like to follow what I see in NYC? Check out Things About New York City, or follow ThingsAboutNYC on twitter or subscribe to the newsletter!
Koen Blanquart is a strategy consultant, journalist, and author.
Wanderlust is one of his driving factors, and he shares his travels here on Boarding Today. Koen is also the skipper of SV Bagabonda, a sailing vessel making a slow circumvention of the globe..
Koen recently published a book on how to manage a remote team: The Suitcase Office.
