Famous Ankles

The start of Broadway is downtown in the Financial District. And just after Broadway starts, you run into the fabled Canyon of Heroes. This is where the ticker tape parades are held. Well, there’s no more ticker tape but I think they do a simulated version of it when they have those rare parades.

The picture above is from the north looking southward.

All along the sidewalk are these inserts. They hold a date, a name, and a description. First, November 2, 1960 when President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon were apparently featured in such a ticker tape parade.

But, you object, 1960 was a presidential election year! Was there some sort of Republican lock on such parades. Nope, just past it is the October 19, 1960 marker for the Democratic presidential nominee, John F. Kennedy. (I guess V.P. Nixon had to share his parade with the sitting president while JFK got his own. But then, Nixon’s was closer to election day.)

Well, those are pretty prestigious individuals. It takes a lot to get a ticker tape. Well, maybe nowadays. Back on November 4, 1959, they held a ticker tape parade for Sekou Toure, the brand new president of Guinea. He was about 37 at the time and had set up a one-party system to lead Guinea after freeing it from French colonial rule. Nowadays, NYC gets a passle of presidents from other countries and I don’t see any parades for them.

Heck, you didn’t even have to be a president. Willy Brandt was the mayor of West Berlin when he got his parade on February 10, 1959. Of course, he later went on to lead West Germany so maybe it was just in anticipation…

-H

This entry was posted on May 9, 2008 at 5:45 pm and is filed under Broadway, Celebrity Points, Events, Parades, Wanderings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.