It used to be that you had to go to Madison Square Garden to hear the roar of Knicks fans. Now everybody in New York is a Knicks fan, and nearly every place in the city is a pop up Knicks viewing party, too. After an unbelievable 4-0 sweep of the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals, New Yorkers who hadn’t previously so much as heard Jalen Brunson’s name have come down with a serious case of Knicks Fever as they’ve gone up against the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals. Even in a city this large, there aren’t enough bars to contain all the longtime fans and recent converts. So, naturally, people have been getting creative, and proving that New York really is a city for pedestrians first.

In Fort Greene, there was a viewing party positioned around the back of a sprinter van, while in SoHo, a box truck did the job. In Park Slope, the 4th Avenue/9th Street Station subway stop was put to use as a projector screen by a second floor apartment dweller. In the Greenwich Village, the corner of West 4th and West 10th Streets were standing room only, while up in Harlem, neighbors brought out their camp chairs. If you were on the move, dozens of LinkNYC screens throughout the city played the game. Even the drudgery of the airport experience was transformed by the Knicks’ historic comeback in Game 4, as footage from JFK Terminal 8 posted to X shows. With this togetherness has come a laughable, very charming giddiness: take this Knicks crowd chanting “UPS” for no reason other than a UPS truck pulling up.

One X user asserted that New York needs more public squares and plazas, as they have in Europe and South America, because of how much of a mess the official viewing parties (like the one outside of MSG) have become; another pointed out that the Seaport held one such event. Central Park’s Wollman Rink and Bryant Park are two other examples of parks that have hosted watch parties. While it might be true that New York could use more large capacity public spaces, it seems that even transforming every park in the city into a space to watch wouldn’t be able to contain just how many New Yorkers have emerged with a desire to watch the games overnight.

Not since the early pandemic era has street life felt so sufficiently transformed. In this case, this transformation isn’t because of a mandate to socialize outdoors-only, but the collective joy from seeing this team’s determination paying off (and the benefit of good weather), which is particularly heightened due to the countless seasons when they weren’t exactly victorious. I’m also reminded of the first day of 2026 when I attempted to get into the inauguration block party for Zohran Mamdani. Despite the freezing cold, thousands of us stood outside on the streets of Downtown Manhattan. We didn’t stand a chance of actually glimpsing the mayor, but it didn’t matter all that much; it wasn’t about him, but about being with other people who were just as moved. And remembering that taking back the streets from cars for a day is a damn good feeling.

In a city this big, it’s not often that we’re all able to come together around one shared interest. But the Knicks’s historic run has showed us not just what great basketball looks like, but what our city can look like when we all come together to reimagine how its streets can serve us. If loving the Knicks was just about loving basketball, we’d all be watching at home or with our AirPods in. But part of what makes watching the team so great right now is knowing you’re never far from another person who’s excited about it too. Let’s hope this is all just warm up for the parade when they win the chip.

Top photo by Adam Gray/Stringer/Getty Images

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