Knicks Watch Parties Are Back - Just Not Outside the Garden - Streetsblog New York City

The mayor supports Knicks fans celebrating their playoff run in public but has not overridden the NYPD’s shutdown of large watch parties outside Madison Square Garden. An initial promise that watch parties would occur was later softened to indicate they would happen elsewhere. The police commissioner, retained by the mayor, ended the outdoor watch parties after arrests of six people from a crowd of about 6,000. The NYPD says the crowd was chaotic and violent, citing alleged actions such as throwing bottles, jumping barriers, climbing structures, blocking traffic, and public drinking. The administration points to official watch parties at other venues, while the NYPD continues to defend Midtown shutdowns using disorderly conduct summonses and refusal to disperse.

"Mamdani has refused to overrule the NYPD's shutdown of the massive watch parties outside Madison Square Garden, walking back his initial statement at a press conference that "they will be there" with a later statement from his spokesperson that "it's not a question of if they'll happen, but where." Tisch - a holdover from the Adams administration retained by Mamdani after demands from the center-right - pulled the plug on the watch parties outside the arena last Thursday after it arrested six members of an approximately 6,000-person crowd."

"A department spokesperson sent Streetsblog a laundry list of alleged offenses seen in the crowd: "People throwing items at each other, including glass bottles, jumping police barriers, climbing light poles and subway structures, blocking vehicular traffic on Seventh Avenue, drinking in the streets." Mamdani's administration pointed to official watch parties on Monday night at Radio City and the Brooklyn Bowl as signs that it has found a way forward."

"But the police department has dug in its jackbooted heels, continuing to defend the need to shut down watch parties in Midtown by pointing to six summonses for disorderly conduct issued as an unofficial crowd gathered outside the arena on Monday night. "Individuals were climbing on light poles and other structures outside the stadium, blocking cars, jumping police barriers, refusing police orders to disperse, public drinking," the spokesperson wrote."

Read at Streetsblog New York City