New Yorkers take to streets to celebrate Biden victory

Revellers gather in Times Square to celebrate Biden win

People gathered to celebrate in Manhattan’s Times Square on November 7, as US media projected Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. Credit: @brianburlage via Storyful

NEW YORK - Across New York City people took to the streets to clap, cheer and bang pots and pans to celebrate the news that Joe Biden is set to become the 46th President of the United States.

News of The Associated Press call of Biden's win spread instantaneously through President Donald Trump's hometown. People who didn't immediately see an alert on their phone learned the news from the yells coming from neighbors' windows.

Throngs cheered on the sidewalk outside Trump Tower, the president's longtime home, and gathered by the hundreds in public plazas that have served as gathering spots for Black Lives Matter protests.

Manhattan residents cheer after Biden win

Cheering and applause was heard in New York City as reports came in of Joe Biden’s presidential victory on Saturday, November 7. Credit: @Rikki5582 via Storyful

Many spoke of a feeling of intense relief. Kyle Boyd, of Brooklyn, said he heard the commotion and instinctively grabbed the cowbell he had banged during nightly celebrations for health care workers throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

“I hadn’t quite imagined it,” Boyd said over the shouting of revelers as a man hoisted a bottle of champagne nearby. “I had no idea when it would come.”

Biden Presidential Win Celebrations Erupt in Brooklyn

Cheering and applause was heard in Brooklyn as reports came in of Joe Biden’s presidential victory on November 7. Credit: Darren Davidson via Storyful

Celebrations on New York Streets as Joe Biden Wins Presidency

People cheered and celebrated on the streets of New York City on November 7 as Joe Biden was elected the 46th president of the United States. Credit: Michelle Young/@untappedny via Storyful

On an East Harlem streetcorner, Jose Diaz was selling T-shirts with an image of Trump and the message “game over.”

Diaz, 57, was so confident Biden would win that he had the shirts made up two months ago, spending $2,000, and had given 100 away, he said.

“The game is over. Now people can get back to normalcy,” said the union ironworker, who was born in Puerto Rico and raised in Manhattan. “This is America. Everyone has the right to vote. He can’t change the rules of the game for himself.”

NYC reacts to Biden win

Cheering and applause was heard in New York City as reports came in of Joe Biden’s presidential victory on November 7. Credit: Morten Barklund via Storyful

In Manhattan's Washington Square Park, people waded into a fountain on an usually warm fall day.

In Harlem, chants of “Black Lives Matter” mixed with cheers, claps, horn-honking among a multiracial crowd on a plaza on the neighborhood’s main drag, 125th Street. Some danced to R&B classics and, later, sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the hymn also known as the Black national anthem.

“If Biden does what he says he’s going to do, we’re going to be a great country,” Terence Blakes, who goes by the name “Born Life,” said as he watched. The 53-year-old, who works at a Harlem school, said he’d waited two to three hours to vote in his precinct in Brooklyn.

The president-elect is expected to address the nation Saturday at 8 p.m. ET.

With the Associated Press.