NEW YORK-- Crowds roared, church bells rang and streams of paper rained down on Broadway as the New York Yankees celebrated their 27th championship yesterday in a way only this city can, with a parade up the Canyon of Heroes.

The players, joined by a few celebrity fans and Yankees of the past, drank it all in as they rode on floats and double-decker buses through Manhattan's financial district.

Whole families skipped work and school to be there. Players recorded the crowd with their cameras as they rode to a second celebration at City Hall, where the mayor presented the team with keys to the city.

Shortstop Derek Jeter carried the trophy, hoisting it high above his head while the crowd screamed and "We are the Champions" blasted on loudspeakers.

"It's been too long, hasn't it?" he told the crowd, a reference to the team's eight-year absence from the top of the sport. "It feels good to be back."

The crowd at City Hall chanted "28." Manager Joe Girardi said he had already talked on the phone with George Steinbrenner about not letting up next year.

"He told me this morning ... the only thing greater than this celebration is doing it two years in a row," Girardi said. "So he asked me to remind everyone, pitchers and catchers report in 96 days. Be ready to defend it."

Brooklyn native Jay-Z capped the celebration with a performance of his song "Empire State of Mind."

Yankees fans may be used to winning, but that didn't make the day any less special for the multitudes along the parade route -- especially children living a championship for the first time.

"This is an experience of a lifetime," said Nicole Orrico, who let her fifth-grade daughter, Koranda, skip school to attend. "You have to mix life with learning."

"There's no better way to inaugurate a new stadium," said Michael Rheubottom, a city jail guard, who attended with his 13-year-old son, Jason. "This is the house that Jeter built. We don't even remember the house that Ruth built."

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