Ticker tape parade recap: New York celebrates COVID-19 essential workers

Justin Davis, a traveling nurse with AMN Healthcare, left his wife and three children behind in Pittsburgh to care for COVID-19 patients in an overwhelmed Manhattan hospital when the pandemic began.

"Never seen anything like it," said Davis, who trained as an Army field medic and has been a nurse for 17 years. "I had more bodies, not enough people to take care. There were unqualified people there because there was nobody else."

When New York's crisis subsided, he moved to COVID hot spots in Orlando and Buffalo.

He will ride atop one of 14 floats that will make its way through the shower of confetti on Wednesday.

Davis told ABC News the parade is also a way to put his pandemic work behind him.

"I’ll accept the thanks," he said. 

-ABC News' Aaron Katersky

The City Hall ceremony at the end of the parade will be "a much smaller, stripped down version" than originally planned due to the heat, Mayor de Blasio said Tuesday.

"We will be greeting the marchers at the end of the parade and thanking them," de Blasio said. "Not a big ceremony, but the parade itself of course will be the central salute to our heroes."

"We will be adding additional cooling centers and water stations along the route," the mayor added.

-ABC News' Aaron Katersky

Ticker tape parades along the Canyon of Heroes are a historical part of New York City. These parades have honored people from Amelia Earhart in 1932 to Winston Churchill in 1946.

The most recent ticker tape parade was in 2019 for the U.S. women's national soccer team after they won the World Cup.

"Ticker tape parades up the Canyon of Heroes, they’ve happened for generations," Mayor Bill de Blasio said last month. "But this one will have a special spirit to it, a special heart and soul, because it's about celebrating everyday New Yorkers who did something heroic and need our thanks."