LOWER MANHATTAN — Let it snow.
A blizzard of shredded paper filled the air in a Lower Manhattan garage Monday morning, as workers gathered bulging bags of confetti for the Super Bowl champion Giants' ticker-tape parade on Tuesday.
The workers, with the Downtown Alliance business improvement district, stuffed one ton of recycled, off-white paper into bags to distribute to the office buildings lining Broadway, where thousands will lean from their windows Tuesday morning to shower the Super Bowl winners in a modern — and eco-friendly — version of ticker tape.
"Being that ticker tape is no longer used on Wall Street, at least we'll have some paper to distribute," said Joe Timpone, the Alliance's senior vice president of operations, "so they won't have to throw out other things, like toilet paper or telephone books."
Timpone, 68, who worked for the Sanitation Department for 31 years before joining the Downtown Alliance, has planned and cleaned up after more parades than he can count, but he said thrill never gets old.
The Giants' last ticker-tape parade came in 2008, after they beat the then-undefeated Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.
"Every time we have a parade is exciting," Timpone said from the Downtown Alliance's garage at 85 Washington St. Monday morning. "You just get caught up in it."
The Downtown Alliance planned to deliver the confetti, stuffed in dozens of bags, to at least 20 office buildings in Lower Manhattan Monday. Requests continued to come in Monday morning, and Timpone said he might have to get more shredded paper from Atlas Materials in Red Hook, which donates the confetti.
Many buildings keep their own supply of shredded paper to use for Canyon of Heroes parades, and the Alliance expects a total of about 50 tons of paper to rain down on the Giants, who beat the Patriots in a 21-17 nail-biter.
The parade, which kicks off at 11 a.m., is open to everyone and runs from Battery Place and Washington Street up the Canyon of Heroes to Worth Street. Up to 1 million people are expected to attend, the city said.
As the parade moves up Broadway, Trinity Church will toll its bells, which were installed in 2006 and also sounded during the Giants' 2008 Super Bowl celebration.
Afterward, the Giants will be presented with the Keys to the City in a ceremony at City Hall. Access to the event is restricted to ticketholders, but the ceremony will be broadcast on three large screens surrounding City Hall Plaza.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday that he expects the parade to bring $19 million to $38 million to the city, thanks to an influx of spectators who will spend money at local businesses.
The Downtown Alliance began quietly preparing for the parade about a week ago, after the Giants clinched their spot in the Super Bowl by beating the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship.
Even though a home team win means lots of extra work for the Downtown Alliance, Timpone said he was rooting for Big Blue — at least once the Jets were knocked out.
"I'm a Jets fan," Timpone said. "But when the Jets lose and the Giants win, I'm a Giants fan."
Once the parade ends Tuesday afternoon, the dozens of Downtown Alliance workers who distributed the confetti will grab giant vacuums and turn their focus to cleaning up the mess.
"It'll be quite a bit of work for the next few weeks," said Joseph Lanaro, director of sanitation at the Downtown Alliance.
"It's not only the parade itself — there's a trickle-down effect. A lot of debris gets caught in scaffolding, on ledges. It's still blowing down three weeks later."
