Amsterdam/NYC Ticker Tape Aftermath

Trinity Church Yard, 1981 (4x5 film)

I'm in Amsterdam, but my thoughts these days are across the Atlantic.

On January 25, 1981, 52 Americans who had been held hostage in Iran for 444 days returned to the United States. New York City Mayor Edward Koch invited them all to a ticker-tape parade in Manhattan, offering them free hotel rooms and airfare for two. On January 30, approximately two million New Yorkers turned out to welcome them home. Twenty-three former hostages took part in the parade. They traveled in open cars up Broadway from Battery Park to City Hall, where Koch welcomed them and presented them with the keys to the city and the City Council’s Proud City Award. The Sanitation Department estimated that 971 tons of paper were thrown.

–Cynthia Blair, Newsday