New Jersey

‘I Waited A Long Time For This': How Eagles Fans Partied at the Super Bowl Parade

Tales of fans who came from far and wide — or just a few blocks away — to watch the parade along South Broad Street.

Drunk with happiness - and a little booze - a text thread began among Jamie Mogil and her siblings in the moments after the Philadelphia Eagles pulled off the Super Bowl LII stunner.

Her sister playfully said, "Who's picking us up at the airport?"

Then, one of her brothers booked a flight. Their goal? To get back to Philly for the victory parade.

"We were very excited," said Mogil, who recently moved back to Philadelphia after more than a decade in New York City.

The rest of the story is part-tragedy, part-comedy. The flights for two of her siblings were booked all wrong. They miscalculated when the parade would be. They flew in Monday and flew out Wednesday.

The family, which has spread out across the country after growing up in Lower Merion and Cherry Hill, New Jersey, has had quite a few laughs about the mishaps of the last few days.

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For Mogil, however, it all turned out fine. She and a brother-in-law (her sister is coming up from Georgia on Friday - don't ask ...) watched the Eagles Parade of Champions firsthand Thursday near South Broad and Christian streets.

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They watched post-parade celebration on the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum on the NBC10 livestream from seats at the Morning Glory diner in Society Hill.

"This is such a huge, important moment," she said, marveling over the mass of humanity on the phone screen as she and her brother-in-law had a very late brunch.

“We wanted it more,” screamed Eagles center Jason Kelce Thursday afternoon to thunderous applause outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Those four short words seemed to capture the feeling of an entire city, where thousands of people descended throughout the day to celebrate a historic Super Bowl win decades in the making.

A big Bird (fan), Anthony Grosso, was an attention grabber along South Broad Street near Snyder Avenue in the hours before the Eagles' caravan of buses passed by. By 9 a.m., he was walking the sidewalks with buddies in an old Mummers outfit modeled after the Eagles mascot.

"I'm from right here in South Philly," Grosso said, pulling up the Eagle mask while walking near South Broad and Morris streets. "Loving all of this."

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Brian X. McCrone/NBC10

Nearby was Dave Johnson of North Philly. He sold T-shirts for $10 in the opposite side of town, just as he did for the Phillies parade in 2008.

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Elsewhere in South Philly, three generations of Philadelphians came together for a day of celebrating. Stuart Goldis - of Glenside - was pictured with his daughter, Staci Serrotta, and her husband, Bill, carrying his grandchild, 20-month-old Austin.

“It’s his first Super Bowl,” Goldis said of his grandchild. “Mine, too, actually. Waited a long time for this.”

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The three adults also came out for the Phillies parade, and Stuart attended the Flyers celebration in 1975.

“He said he’ll show up naked if the Flyers have another one,” Staci Serrotta said of her father.

Shallcross family

Elsewhere, Tom Shallcross looked at the skyscrapers as he, his wife Chris and their son Bobby walked north through the growing crowds on South Broad Street near Snyder Avenue.

"It's like 3 miles at least to the (Ben Franklin) Parkway," he told his wife.

"What do you want to do?" Chris asked her husband about 9 a.m.

They decided to keep heading north. But for how long?

They didn't know exactly. The Ocean City, New Jersey, family was just contented with being there, at an Eagles Super Bowl parade.

They parked at a lot near the stadiums in South Philly, and now were excited like everyone else along the parade route to see something they'd never seen before, something no one had ever seen before.

"We can't wait!" Chris Shallcross said, and on they walked, anticipating when in a couple hours their champion Eagles would come passing by.

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