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A parade fit for Super Bowl champions

BY KARLA SCHUSTER | karla.schuster@newsday.com

10:38 PM EST, February 5, 2008

With confetti raining down on them and more than a million giddy fans jamming lower Manhattan, the New York Giants celebrated their improbable Super Bowl win Tuesday with the city's first ticker-tape parade in eight years and a rousing victory party on the steps of City Hall.

Giants faithful played hooky or took sick days. They rose before dawn, or didn't sleep at all. They stood for hours against metal barriers, stacked more than 20 deep along the Canyon of Heroes on Broadway.

The Rev. James H. Cooper, rector at Trinity Episcopal Church on Broadway, canceled his afternoon service, donned a Giants cap and a gold ecclesiastical cape and, from atop a ladder on the church steps, waved a Giants poster and a gold thurible smoking with incense.

The church's bells were ringing for 45 minutes, but were mostly drowned out by the noise of the fans.

"We are right there and knew the ticker tape was going to come by," said Cooper, a lifelong Giants fan. "It's a wonderful civic event and we want to be part of it. The ringing of the bells was a sign of celebration and the incense which I was swinging was a sign of celebration and blessing."

Giants players rode donated floats up Broadway from Battery Place, tossing commemorative T-shirts into the crowd. Fans responded in kind, lobbing hats and shirts -- one woman tossed her sneaker -- to the players to autograph and throw back.

"This is a very important piece of history," said Eileen Lewis, 45, of Port Washington, who allowed her children, Meaghan, 17, and Kyle, 11, to take the day off from school so the family could attend the parade together. "These are the things you're not allowed to miss."

Diane Lima, 47, of Hamilton, N.J., traveled 2 1/2 hours on a train to Manhattan and stood gloveless on Broadway near Vesey Street for two more hours to watch her beloved Big Blue.

"It was completely worth it," Lima said. "Frozen toes and fingers and all."

The parade was the first ticker-tape celebration since the Yankees won the 2000 World Series, and the first ever for a Super Bowl champion. In a preliminary review, New York police reported at least 30 arrests, including three people charged with criminal mischief after they climbed atop two unmarked police cars to get a better view of the parade.

At City Hall Park, fans began filing in about 8:30 a.m. for the 1 p.m. ceremony. As the ceremony's start grew closer, jumbo screens on the plaza flashed various images of the fourth-quarter pass from quarterback Eli Manning to receiver David Tyree, who caught the ball by cradling it against his helmet.

"Are there any Giants fans here?" quipped Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who presented keys to the city to the team's players, coaches and owners. "The Giants may not be perfect, but no one is."

In defeating the heavily favored New England Patriots, the Giants not only won the Super Bowl, they ended the Patriots quest for a perfect season at 18-1.

"Take that Boston, I'm not running in Massachusetts anyway," said Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who claimed to have cast write-in ballots for Coughlin and Manning as president and vice president in Tuesday's Democratic primary.

Ryan Wilson of Middletown had the same idea, with a slight revision. The 22-year-old laborer, who won four tickets to the ceremony via a city lottery, waved an "Eli for President" sign.

"I've been traveling since 4:30 this morning," Wilson said. "I don't even know where I'm supposed to vote."

Manning, the game's most valuable player, carried the Vince Lombardi Trophy onto a stage erected on the steps of City Hall.

"This is the greatest city in the world and all y'all deserve to have the greatest football team in the world," Manning said.

Fan favorite Michael Strahan, a 15-year veteran defensive end, was drowned out by chants of "one more year" from the crowd at City Hall.

"One more year?" Strahan asked, flashing his trademark gap-toothed grin. "We'll see."

Strahan brought the crowd and his team to their feet, leading them in what he said was a standard Giants pregame ritual.

"Everybody here -- we're in the family circle now," he said, as his teammates stood up behind him.

"What are we going to do?" he asked.

In unison, Strahan and the players shouted "Stomp," and then jumped up and landed hard on the stage. "You out!"

"We would like to extend this to every other team in the NFL, and particularly for the last team we defeated, the New England Patriots," he said.

"Because you know what we did to you? Strahan asked, as the players and the crowd repeated the sequence. "We stomped you out!"