History on parade

Hoot and holler, New York, in salute of the World Cup soccer champions as they parade up Broadway’s Canyon of Heroes. Actually, today, it’s the Canyon of Heroines. Also today, let’s be grateful that Mayor de Blasio’s 2017-18 commission on monuments — you remember, the silly one he concocted to root out what he called “symbols of hate” — didn’t get its way. “Remove references to the name ‘Canyon of Heroes’ from Lower Broadway,” it recommended, “as it mischaracterizes the installation as a celebration of heroic figures who, in some cases, do not reflect contemporary values of New York City.”

The kickers getting the tickers today, the 207th special procession, reflect our values quite well, thank you very much.

Embedded in Broadway’s sidewalks where onlookers cheer are granite markers with the dates and names of all previous honorees.

What got de Blasio, then the panel, upset

were the ones documenting the Oct. 22, 1931 ticker tape parade for French premier Pierre Laval and, four days later, for French WWI savior Marshal Pétain. A decade later, both were Nazi collaborators, traitors and war criminals.

At first, the mayor tweeted that he wanted Pétain’s marker removed. Fortunately, he later backed down from that rash revisionism.

Thanks to a just-completed 113-page report the city asked for, compiled by Museum of the City of New York with the Downtown Alliance, which installs the markers, the details on every parade are now all in one place, with context.

In the past 20 years, only sports teams have been honored. What’s up with that? This page has long called for a parade for the vets of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Sure, great soccer players deserve our adulation. But they’re not the only ones. Or are there no other heroes left?