NEW YORK — Marcy Lindqvist, 66, of Astoria, Queens, has held the same two seats in Section 108 at Madison Square Garden since the spring of 1973, when she bought them for a game she does not remember against a team she has since forgotten. She keeps the ticket stub in a plastic sleeve in her kitchen drawer, next to the batteries, “for the paper.”
On Tuesday at 7 p.m., the Knicks open the 2026-27 season at home against the 76ers, and the team is scheduled to raise its first championship banner since 1973 before tipoff, a banner for the title the Knicks won over the San Antonio Spurs. Lindqvist plans to be in the same seats, as she has been for every home game since.
“I saw it in 1973, I saw it again in 1985, and I saw it in 2019, all from the same seat, with the years changed,” Lindqvist said Monday, while the stub was still in the sleeve.
Asked what she expected Tuesday, Lindqvist said she expected to be “up for it,” then paused and said she expected to be “up for the third one, technically.” She said she had already bought a seat cushion for the occasion, which she had also bought in 1973.
Dr. Marjorie Teller, director of the Center for Measured Outcomes, said the Center’s records show Lindqvist’s seats have been sold to her 11 times since 1973, and that her account of three banner ceremonies matches none of them. “The Center has checked her account against the seating records for those years,” Teller said. “Ms. Lindqvist has seen the banner three times, which we consider a conservative estimate. Further study is needed, and we have applied for the funding.”
Lindqvist said she had not decided whether to watch it from her seat or from the ceiling, where she believes the banner will end up.
“They can put it wherever they want,” she said. “I’m going to be there. I’ve been there the whole time. I was there before the banner, and I’ll be there after, and I’ll have seen it, which is more than most people in this city can say, and most of them are at the bar.”
Lindqvist was asked whether she was nervous about the 76ers. She said the 76ers had “a lot of names,” and that she had seen a lot of names. Asked for her prediction, she said the game would be close, then said she had seen that before, too.