DAVID FOLKENFLIK, HOST:
New York has been waiting 53 years for this party.
(CHEERING)
FOLKENFLIK: The Knicks clinched the NBA title last night in San Antonio. Meanwhile, delirium and even some destruction filled the streets of the Big Apple.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Singing) We are the champions.
FOLKENFLIK: This celebration won't end anytime soon. And yet even if you're from New York City, you may still have wondered, just what on Earth is a Knick? Well, sports fans and everyone else, we have just the man to answer your question. Peter-Christian Aigner is the director of the Gotham Center for New York History, and he joins me now. Peter, welcome.
PETER-CHRISTIAN AIGNER: Thanks for having me.
FOLKENFLIK: All right. So let's get to it. What's a Knick?
AIGNER: So this comes - this is a term that comes from Washington Irving. This is the guy that wrote "The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow." Washington Irving was sort of, like, the literary godfather of New York City, but also by extension, the literary godfather of the U.S. So we fight this war against the country called Britain back in 1776.
FOLKENFLIK: Heard of it.
AIGNER: And for decades afterwards, a lot of people in the country are still sort of acting British. The vast majority of books that they publish and culture in general is British. Irving writes this two-volume history of New York City, and he publishes it under the name Diedrich Knickerbocker. There's some theories out there that it was actually a genuine person named Knickerbocker who was a friend of Irving's, but Irving really felt it was important for this new country and for this new city to really sort of have this kind of mythical past, like the way that J. R. R. Tolkien thought that, like, England really needed this kind of mythical past, and that was part of the purpose there. So out of that came this notion of the knickerbocker, and knickerbocker basically just became this word for the old blue bloods, the old leading families and the people there from the colonial period.
FOLKENFLIK: So the Knicks, you know, the people's basketball team is really about the elites of the - what ultimately became the nation's leading city.
AIGNER: Well, so the period I'm talking about is, like, the early 1800s, right? But over time, it moves away from this kind of orientation to those kind of leading families of the colonial period and this kind of elite and the folks who walked around with literal silk stockings and those ridiculous powdered wigs and such and becomes this kind of general catch-all for any kind of New Yorker. And so when the Knicks are getting started, they're looking for something that's, like, quintessential New York. So what's more quintessential to New York than, like, the guy who's like, the literal, kind of, you know, symbolic figure of the city?
FOLKENFLIK: So when you see, even though there was, let's acknowledge, some violence and some destruction that occurred in some of the celebrations and, you know, even after a loss in New York, was it also fun to see people of every hue, every denomination, every background celebrate wearing those Knicks jerseys, given the heritage of where that name came from?
AIGNER: Oh, 100%. Even if I didn't run the Gotham Center for New York City History at CUNY, I'm a Queens boy. That means that by default, I'm a Mets fan, and it's just thrilling to see not just this team that, you know, often kind of had this underdog status for years, but, you know, a team that really does kind of symbolize New Yorkness in its kind of diversity, right? There's a sense of it as the people's team, and, you know, New York is a place where you have people of all different kinds, people from every part of the world, getting together. And for a city like that to be celebrating together at a moment like this, that's thrilling. And just for hometown pride, of course, couldn't be happier.
FOLKENFLIK: We've been speaking with Peter-Christian Aigner. He's director of the Gotham Center for New York History. Although I suspect he wouldn't be for much longer if he didn't profess his love of the Knicks. Peter, thanks very much.
AIGNER: My pleasure. Anytime.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "EMPIRE STATE OF MIND")
ALICIA KEYS: (Singing) New York, concrete jungle where dreams... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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