NYC's ticker-tape parade history

The first ticker-tape parade in New York City was a celebration of the completion of the Statue of Liberty on Oct. 28, 1886.

The parade was planned, but when Wall Street workers spontaneously threw ticker-tape out their windows — one inch wide streams of paper used with telegraph machines to report stock prices and market information — along the parade route, a tradition was born.

According to the Downtown Alliance, an organization that operates the Downtown-Lower Manhattan Business Improvement District, more than one million people attended that first parade at which President Grover Cleveland addressed the crowd.

Since then the city has held more than 200 ticker-tape parades. They’ve celebrated presidents, military victories, visiting foreign leaders, athletes, astronauts and veterans. Though in recent decades, most ticker-tape parades have been for sports teams, the first such parade to celebrate athletic achievement was held in 1924 to recognize the U.S. Olympic Team.

The cascade of streams of paper became popular and routine as more than 130 ticker-tape parades were held after World War II until Mayor John Lindsay discontinued them in 1966. They returned in 1969 to celebrate Apollo 8 and Apollo 11 astronauts and the Mets.