HEROES & HEELS
Canyon has hosted scoundrels and immortals
The 207th parade along New York’s Canyon of Heroes on Wednesday will laud the U.S. women’s national soccer team and their World Cup championship.
The famed strip in Lower Manhattan has hosted some of the greatest personalities in modern history, but it has also seen its share of villains.
In a “biography” of the previous 206 ticker tape parades, the Downtown Alliance and Museum of the City of New York chronicled each of those who were celebrated with tons of confetti along Broadway route — record-setters, world leaders, astronauts, humanitarians, soldiers, spiritual leaders, public servants and athletes — warts and all.
There was Charles Lindbergh, who rode through the Canyon of Heroes in 1927 after his solo nonstop transatlantic flight. Despite his aviation accomplishments, the biography says he was reviled by critics for racist and anti-Semitic sentiments, including an initial opposition to WWII because of fears it would “reduce the strength and destroy the treasures of the white race.”
A year later, the biography notes, the Fascist governor of Rome Prince Ludovico Potenziani Spada got the confetti treatment during a visit to New York City in which he praised Americans’ reported fascination with dictator Benito Mussolini.
German politician Theodor Heuss earned a ticker tape parade in 1958, despite his history of being one of the public officials who voted to grant Adolph Hitler emergency power. After leaving the government when Hitler took control, Heuss did not became an active member of the German Resistance. However, the biography points out, Hitler had Heuss’ writings burned as part of the Nazi bookburning campaign.
In 1962, parades were staged for three world leaders who were subsequently deposed, forced to flee their countries or assassinated: Brazil’s president Joao Goulart; the Shah of Iran Mohammed Reza Pahlevi; and authoritarian leader Sylvanus Olympio of Togo.
Andy Breslau, vice president of the Downtown Alliance, called the report a response to City Hall’s request for context and a recommendation on what to do about some of the folks who were feted with parades and turned out to be not so stellar.
The decision: full disclosure.
“We advocated that a fuller picture of history was the best solution,” Breslau said. “In order to take full stock of our city’s history, there’s a need to realize that these parades happened.”