NEW YORK — Thousands of fans roared as New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning hoisted the team’s Super Bowl trophy, awarded to the National Football League champions, from a glittering blue-and-white float Tuesday during a victory parade through New York City, which Mayor Michael Bloomberg quipped should now be nicknamed the “Big Blue Apple.”
The parade set off from the southern tip of Manhattan and moved slowly north to City Hall as fans stood dressed head-to-toe in Giants gear and confetti wafted slowly down from the high-rises that line the street.
Manning, joined by coach Tom Coughlin, Bloomberg, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other teammates, waved and grinned from the float as a deep roar rose from the crowds.
The team was introduced with thunderous applause from the lucky 250 fans who got tickets to a ceremony at City Hall Plaza, where the Giants were honored with symbolic keys to the city.
Bloomberg reminded the cheering crowd that this was the second Super Bowl championship parade for the Giants in four years. They also beat the Patriots in the NFL title game in 2008.
Some fans waited since 6 a.m. to catch a glimpse of their favorite players.
The parade for the Super Bowl champions will have an estimated economic impact of up to $38 million for the city, depending on the number of spectators, Bloomberg said. As many as 1 million were expected — about a third of them from outside New York.
After the parade, the team will travel to New Jersey for a 3 p.m. rally at MetLife Stadium, where it plays.
It’s hard to imagine a victory more exciting than the Giants’ last-minute 21-17 victory over the Patriots. The hero of this year’s parade undoubtedly will be Manning, the Super Bowl’s Most Valuable Player.
New York City Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty said he expected to see about 40 tons of paper showered down. That’s a lot but not one for the record books. The city threw 5,438 tons of ticker tape on returning veterans at the end of World War II in 1945.
The second-highest amount of paper was thrown to honor astronaut John Glenn in 1962 — 3,474 tons. The actual ticker tape from those days has been replaced by recycled paper that’s shredded into confetti.
Sanitation spokeswoman Kathy Dawkins says the department picked up 34.2 tons of paper after the Giants’ last parade in 2008.
Even before the parade started, city sanitation crews with hand-held vacuums were ready to suck up the piles of confetti that would rain on Broadway.
New York has feted its public heroes since 1919, with the first parade for World War I General John Pershing and his victorious troops.
They were followed by more than 200 parades honoring such people as aviator Charles Lindbergh, scientist Albert Einstein, Pope John Paul, South African leader Nelson Mandela and pianist Van Cliburn. Their names are chiseled into the Broadway sidewalks.
• Associated Press Writer Samantha Gross contributed to this report.
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