Another World Cup win for the U.S. women, another ticker-tape parade

For over 100 years, ticker-tape parades in Manhattan have celebrated many events, including the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge, the return of the Apollo 11 astronauts and numerous World Series victories by the New York Yankees.

Next comes the U.S. women’s soccer team, which claimed its fourth World Cup title on Sunday in a 2-0 victory over the Netherlands. It will be honored with a ticker-tape parade on Wednesday, according to the office of Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The winning squad from the 2015 World Cup is the only other women’s sports team that has been honored with such a parade.

“We are incredibly excited and honored to celebrate the U.S. women’s national team’s World Cup victory with the amazing people of New York City,” said Carlos Cordeiro, the president of the United States Soccer Federation. “This team is truly special, and so is the level of support that our fans have shown every step of the way along the quest to a fourth star.”

Wednesday’s parade is scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m. and proceed down the Canyon of Heroes, a stretch of Broadway between Battery Park and City Hall, according to the mayor’s office.

“On and off the field, this team represents what’s best about New York City and our nation,” de Blasio said in a statement. “The confidence, grit and perseverance of the U.S. women’s national soccer team serve as an inspiration to all who watch them.”

The ticker-tape parade earns its name from the one-inch-wide paper strip that ran through stock ticker machines to transmit stock prices over telegraph lines. The machines produced ribbons of scrap paper in the skyscrapers that proliferated throughout Lower Manhattan, now the city’s financial district, in the late 1800s.

In the decades that followed, ticker-tape parades welcomed American soldiers back from World War I and the Korean War. They greeted heads of state, celebrated Olympic champions and honored Charles Lindbergh for completing his nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic. By the 1950s, as many as three ticker-tape parades were being held in a single week.

But as modern skyscrapers’ windows were sealed and ticker machines were replaced with computers, the parade logistics became more cumbersome. Those celebrating began tossing computer paper, rolls of toilet paper and occasionally the contents of office trash cans in lieu of the traditional paper ribbons.

In 1984 the city even distributed 145 30-gallon bags of tape, confetti and other paper debris to 40 office buildings to ensure that sufficient amounts of celebratory paper would grace a parade honoring U.S. Olympians.

Between the confetti and the clean-up costs, the parades can be expensive. The de Blasio administration estimated that the 2015 parade honoring the World Cup winners cost the city nearly $1.5 million, with another $450,000 coming from private sponsors.

Still, de Blasio agreed to break with the norm dictating that ticker-tape parades honor only New York-area sports teams because public support was so strong.

Thousands gathered for that event to watch as de Blasio rode on a float with players including Megan Rapinoe and Carli Lloyd, who had scored three goals in the tournament final.

“None of us stopped believing, and neither should you guys,” Abby Wambach, the star forward, told the crowd at the celebration’s culmination at City Hall. “We love you, New York City.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.