Watch the Knicks Parade Through NYC’s Own Traffic Cameras

An artist is transforming New York City’s public traffic surveillance cameras into a live broadcast of the Knicks’ NBA championship parade — and this time, the city is on board.

Morry Kolman, a New York-based artist who works with public data and surveillance systems, is livestreaming the ticker-tape parade along the Canyon of Heroes in lower Manhattan. He’s using feeds from NYC’s Department of Transportation (DOT) traffic camera network. These cameras monitor road congestion and manage traffic signals. They’re publicly accessible, but most people only check them to see if the BQE is stuck.

What Makes This Different From Just Watching the News

Typical parade coverage includes a TV crew, a broadcast truck, and a correspondent on the street. Kolman’s project eliminates all that. He pulls raw, unfiltered feeds directly from the DOT’s network and stitches them together into one viewing experience — no commentary, no sponsors, and no celebrity cutaways.

Imagine watching through a grid of security monitors in a back office. Now picture that back office as the internet, where anyone can tune in.

The feeds are publicly available because New York City, like many major U.S. cities, puts its traffic camera network online so drivers can check road conditions. Kolman isn’t hacking anything. He’s just watching, and he’s inviting everyone to watch along.

This Isn’t His First Time at This

Kolman has done similar projects before for other major NYC events. The difference this time, as Wired points out, is that the city’s Department of Transportation isn’t demanding he stop. In previous cases, the DOT pushed back against Kolman’s use of its feeds, questioning whether repurposing public footage crossed a line.

The fact that the city seems to have backed off is interesting. It suggests a quiet acknowledgment that if camera feeds are public, the public can use them — even in creative ways.

The Bigger Picture: Public Cameras, Private Moments

Kolman’s project falls into a larger conversation about surveillance in American cities. New York has thousands of traffic cameras capturing its streets. Most people have no clue how many there are, where they’re pointed, or who can access them.

By using these cameras to broadcast a celebration, Kolman is doing something subtle yet important: he’s making the surveillance infrastructure visible. Those cameras are always watching. During a parade, though, the focus is on something joyful.

Privacy advocates — individuals and organizations that resist the expansion of government and corporate monitoring in public spaces — argue that public camera networks create a permanent record of people’s movements, even if they haven’t done anything wrong. The Knicks parade stream doesn’t change that. But it does allow ordinary New Yorkers to become broadcasters of their own surveillance, at least for one afternoon.

What This Means

For many, this is a quirky way to watch a parade. If you can’t get to lower Manhattan or want to avoid the crowds, you can check out Kolman’s stream. It offers a ground-level, unproduced view of the celebration from multiple angles along the route — something no TV broadcast can provide.

But there’s a longer-term implication worth considering. As cities expand their camera networks for traffic management, public safety, and smart city planning, projects like this raise a question that urban planners and privacy advocates are tackling: if a camera is publicly funded and accessible, does the public have the right to use the feed however they want?

Kolman’s project, simply by existing without legal challenge this time, nudges the answer toward yes.

Community Reactions

“This is actually genius. The city spent all that money on cameras and we’re not even allowed to look at them creatively? The feeds are public. What’s the problem?”

— u/BrooklynNetworkEngineer, Reddit

“It’s cool as an art project but also kind of unsettling when you realize how many of those cameras are just… always on. All the time. Watching everything.”

— YouTube comment on a Kolman project stream upload

What To Watch

• The parade itself is the immediate event. Kolman’s stream will go live along the Canyon of Heroes route in lower Manhattan.
• The DOT’s continued response is worth keeping an eye on. If the city stays silent this time, it sets an informal precedent for future public camera repurposing projects.
• Broader policy conversations about public camera access are happening in city councils and state legislatures across the country. New York’s handling of Kolman’s project could become a reference point in those debates.
• Kolman’s next project: artists in this space often push boundaries once they soften. What he does after the parade is worth following.

Sources: Wired: How to Watch the Knicks Parade on NYC Traffic Surveillance Cameras