Mayor Zohran Mamdani will give the ceremonial key to the city to New York Knicks players on Thursday following a ticker-tape parade that’s expected to draw record crowds.
He’ll debut a newly-designed key that focuses on the city’s nickname as The Big Apple, incorporating a touch of the mayor’s own campaign aesthetic.
It’s the first key designed without the city seal, with a design focus on the Mamdani’s “own civic identity,” according to a press release. The design is also meant to showcase the city’s “diversity and dynamism.”
The gold-colored key is emblazoned with the mayor’s name in the same font as that used in his campaign on its stem. The bow of the key features an apple, with a leaf motif.
The key was designed by Aneesh Bothaphy, who developed the Mamdani campaign branding and now works at City Hall, according to a spokesperson. The typography is also from the campaign and was designed by Tobias Frere-Jones.
The keys were manufactured by Azra Khalfan, who owns Plaques by Azra, a Queens-based company launched in 1974 by her parents, who named the company after her.
Khalfan was first contacted by the city about making the keys on Memorial Day weekend, and the whole process took around three weeks, she said. They make trophies and plaques for public school students, and they’ve made awards for presidents and prime ministers.
“But knowing that these keys will be given to the Knicks makes me so, so proud,” Khalfan told The City Reporter.
Keys, from Cornbury to Mamdani
The tradition of giving out a key to the city dates back to 1702, when Viscount Edward Cornbury, a provincial governor of New York, received one by the mayor, according to a 2007 article in the New York Times. Honored guests began receiving them in the mid-1800s.
In the late 1960s, Mayor John Lindsay gave out prints of the keys instead of actual keys, due to financial issues as New York descended into bankruptcy.
From the 1970s up until 2022, all of the keys to the city looked the same – large skeleton keys with the city seal and the mayor’s name, delivered in a classy velvet box. They were designed as a replica of a key made in 1812 for a door to City Hall.
Mayor Eric Adams broke tradition by introducing his own keys, which were larger and mounted on wood. (And made in New Jersey, no less.) He and his staff handed out “entertainers keys” without parades to stars including Billy Joel, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and (controversially) P. Diddy, who later returned his award following his indictment on sex assault charges.
The keys were also given to performers at the former mayor’s summer concert series, and everyone from freestyle singer Lisa Lisa to soca legend Machal Montano received one.
The entire Knicks team will receive individual keys on Thursday to honor their historic defeat of the San Antonio Spurs in five games to bring back their first championship in 53 years.
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