Juan Monroy

Yesterday, New York City hosted the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team for an old-fashioned ticker-tape parade to celebrate their championship in the recently completed Women’s World Cup. I attended and snapped a few photos.

Having been in New York since 2001, I felt it was high time that I saw a ticker-tape parade. These parades were so called because the offices of financial firms lining Broadway would dump out their spent ticker tapes to shower the celebrants. Also, I felt that I could at least show some support for a group of amazing women who are currently fighting for equal compensation to what the men’s team receives, even though the US Men’s National Soccer Team failed to even qualify for the most recent World Cup tournament. There were some isolated chants of “USA! Equal Pay!” before and during the ceremony.

Also, it had been a while since I had used my SLR so I figured this would be a great opportunity to use it and post some photos.

As I was arriving downtown, I began noticing fans wearing replicas of the women’s team jerseys. Many of them were little girls who looked genuinely excited about being there to see the athletes they so admire. I didn’t shoot any photographs of these girls—I feel uneasy photographing children I don’t know unaware—but I did get find a good moment that might communicate the excitement many kids were apparently feeling that day.

However, now that I look at it, it looks as if the adult, male chaperone is lecturing the girls. I hope he’s just explaining that they could be parading down the Canyon of Heroes some day.

Although this was a celebration of these women athletes, I want to draw attention to the presence of two politico men that paraded with the women.

First, there was Bill de Blasio. He apparently has taken a break from his presidential campaign to award the team the ceremonial key to the city. I hope he wasn’t too shocked at seeing so many people at a public event.

Second, Governor Andrew Cuomo was also there. He had just signed into law the New York State Equal Pay Act. You have to give him credit. He’s a shrew politician and has a opportunistic sense of timing. Perhaps this is why de Blasio and Cuomo don’t get along and why they rode on separate floats. Or perhaps it’s some weird Italian in-fighting thing that I don’t understand: like how one’s ancestors eat pizza with a fork, and the other’s don’t.