Ticker tape parades! Hooray for the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team
(or football team if you’re from Europe.)
I watched every game. I watched the parade on TV.
The U.S. Women’s soccer team is awesome. They paraded from
the Battery to City Hall where they received the keys to the City of New York
and the cheers of the Nation.
A few days after the parade I was in the city and made it a
point to go to lower Broadway and take a picture of the inscription that is inlayed
on the Broadway sidewalk. This what the new one will look like. Interestingly,
the new one will also be July 10th.
Being OCD, I not only photographed this inscription, but all
207 of them. Don’t worry I won’t bore you with the full list – just the other
women who have received this honor. We start with the first one on October 28th
1886 –
Every ticker tape parade is inscribed along the Broadway “Canyon
of Heroes.” The women soccer team was the 207th to participate in aticker tape parade. For the millennials let me explain the term: Ticker tape
machines were remotely driven devices used in brokerages to provide updated
stock market prices. The term “ticker” came for the sound made by the machine
as it printed on long strips of narrow paper.
It was at this parade that office boys threw ticker tape out
windows. The New York Times reported: “The air was white with curling
streamers.” I just happen to have a
photo of the Statue of Liberty that I took from a helicopter.
he second woman honored in 1924 is Gertrude Ederle. She was
the first woman to swim the English Channel.
She also swam faster than any man had. The reason: they used
the breast stroke; she used the crawl. Her time – 14 hours, 31 minutes. I must
mention that this native New Yorker had also won 3 medals in the 1924 Olympics.
One of the reasons she made the swim was that her father had promised to buy
her a roadster if she did it.
Following in her wake was another swimmer. This time it was
first mother to complete the crossing From France to England.
Mille Gade Corson’s time was an hour slower than Elder’s but
still faster than any man’s.
Now we move from the water to the air. Pilot Ruth Elder,
also known as the “Flying Flapper,” tried to be the first woman to fly across
the Atlantic.
She almost made it except that her plane crashed near the
Azores, 28 hours and 2,632 miles after takeoff. It was still the longest flight
over water. So, she was showered in white paper scraps in 1927.
A more successful female pilot was honored with not one but
two ticker tape extravaganzas. Amelia Earhart, known as “Landy Lindy” because
she resembled Charles Lindberg, was first feted in 1928. As the inscription
reads: she was the first woman to complete a transatlantic flight with pilots
Wilmer Stulz and Louis E. Gordon.
Her second parade came 4 years later in 1932. She flew solo
from Newfoundland to Dublin – the longest nonstop solo flight by a woman.
Five years later she and her co-pilot Frederick J. Noonan
tried to circumnavigate the world, but they and their plane went missing after
leaving New Guinea.
If there is anything harder that flying solo across the
Atlantic, it must be flying in such a confined space with your spouse. In 1933
Amy Johnson and her husband Captain James Mollison were the first married
couple to do what Amelia Earhart did.
I’m sure it didn’t help the relationship when instead of
landing in New York, they crash landed in Bridgeport, Connecticut because they
ran out of fuel. I must give respect where it is due - Amy was no novice pilot.
She was also the first woman to fly from England to Australia.
As one could almost expect, the flying couple divorced in
1938. Three years later Amy bailed out of her disabled plane over the Thames
and was never seen again.
The next recognition of women came in 1951 when the women in
the Armed Services marched up Broadway.
There is a back story here. The Department of Defense
strongly suggested that this parade should take place. They needed to fill
72,000 vacancies across all service branches. It was patriotic publicity.
The year 1954 saw another female war hero
saluted on the pavement – Genevieve de Galard-Teraube
Those who know the history of Vietnam recognize the French
military base at Dienbienphu.
As a nurse (and a
pilot) Lt. de Galard-Teraube tended to the needs of her soldiers and refused to
leave until all the French wounded had been evacuated.
Te next two women to receive a motorcade through joyous
confetti were Althea Gibson 1957 and Carol Heiss 1960.
Athea Gibson won a title at Wimbledon
5 times overall, from 1956 to 1958 - 2 singles titles and 3 doubles titles.
She was the first Black athlete to
overcome the discrimination and play international tennis. She was also a
professional golfer becoming the first black women to compete on the Women’s
Professional Golf Tour.
Cqrol Heiss was an Olympic figure skating champion -
According to Sports Illustrated, this 20-year-old Queens
native “delivered one of the most polished performances in Olympic
figure-shaking history.
A
It all started when…
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