He’s passed the torch.
The New York Liberty’s ticker-tape parade on Thursday will be among the first without the longtime “Confetti King” shepherding the festivities along Manhattan’s Canyon of Heroes.
Joe Timpone, who procured paper shreds for more than a dozen parades in his 20 years with the Downtown Alliance, retired in 2015 – and a new fleet of confetti connoisseurs has assumed his responsibilities.
“While no one could ever take the mantle of ‘Confetti King,’ Joe passed the torch to a new generation of Confetti Captains,” Downtown Alliance President Jessica Lappin told The Post Tuesday.
The upcoming celebration of the Liberty’s WNBA championship title will be the first of a New York team without Timpone, who also racked up parade-planning experience in his three decades with the city Department of Sanitation.
“We always plan ahead, because just in case they win, we have to be ready,” said Daniel Giacomazza, Downtown Alliance’s vice president of operations, who now handles confetti logistics alongside senior vice president of operations Ron Wolfgang.
“We had faith in the Liberty,” added Lappin. “A few days before, we started to talk to the city and plan internally. But, you don’t want to pull the trigger on a ton of paper until they did delight everyone in their big, exciting, dramatic win.”
The Liberty won their first WNBA title on Sunday night — giving both the city and the Downtown Alliance less than four days to hit the ground running on plans for the celebration.
Their longtime supplier, which donated recycled confetti free-of-charge, went out of business since the last ticker-tape parade in 2021 — leaving the non-profit group scrambling for a new vendor this time around, Lappin said.
The 2,000 pounds of crinkled packing paper garnered for the upcoming parade — which cost about $5,000 – was ordered earlier this week from a ULINE packaging facility and will be bagged and distributed Wednesday, Giacomazza said.
More than 100 bags of confetti will be doled out the day before the parade to about two dozen buildings along Broadway that requested them, Giacomazza said.
Many buildings will be tossing confetti from their windows, while others will throw the bags from street-level as the newer buildings on Broadway have windows that don’t fully open.
“We usually like to over-order [confetti] just in case,” Giacomazza said, adding that the standard 1-ton of confetti has been ordered for previous parades for the 2012 Giants Super Bowl win and the 2019 US women’s soccer team’s World Cup win.
The Department of Sanitation expects to pick up about 3,000 pounds of confetti in total on Thursday — which could very well include more paper shreds that attendees bring from home, a spokesperson said.
“As with New Year’s Eve and other large citywide events, more than 350 sanitation workers will be on the ground cleaning as soon as the event ends, aiming to get all streets cleaned and reopened within three hours of the end of the parade,” the rep said.
“After the streets are cleaned and reopened, we will continue to be out there addressing any ongoing conditions.”
The Downtown Alliance has a separate fleet of about 50 sanitation workers who have a daily route along Broadway and, on Thursday, about half of those will assist city sanitation workers with dusting off ledges and other crevices where confetti may get stuck, Giacomazza said.
Downtown Alliance’s public safety squad also coordinates with FDNY and NYPD to secure the parade site.
The ticker-tape parade — which will kick off at 10 a.m. from Battery Park — is just one of the offerings Downtown Alliance takes care of behind the scenes, from free transportation in lower Manhattan to supplemental security services and special event programming.
“Every day, it’s always something different,” Giacomazza said. “I don’t know how many people can say this about their job – I love it every day.”
If New York Yankees hit a World Series win in the next few weeks, Giacomazza will have to do his once-in-a-blue-moon ticker-tape parade duties all over again.
“I would think that the city would most definitely do something like that, and yes, we would be purchasing more confetti,” he said.