{"id":710918,"date":"2026-06-18T06:07:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T06:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/710918\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T06:07:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T06:07:16","slug":"heres-something-london-can-be-envious-of-when-new-york-parties-it-really-parties-emma-brockes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/710918\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s something London can be envious of: when New York parties, it really parties | Emma Brockes"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a moment on Sunday morning when, scrolling through pages of content celebrating the New York Knicks\u2019 spectacular NBA championship win<\/a> in the city \u2013 videos in which it seemed people of every age, race, background and zip code put aside their differences to hug and scream \u2013 I wondered how far the principle of sport-as-the-ultimate-leveller might stretch.<\/p>\n

For example: given the joy on Saturday night was so intense, could you have sent the most hated figures in the US into the ecstatic Knicks viewing parties \u2013 those gatherings of thousands who came together to watch the game projected on to the sides of buildings \u2013 and witnessed the joy of the event transform them into regular humans? Greg Bovino<\/a>, say, the loathed former US border tsar in his soldier-of-fortune Halloween costume \u2013 pop a jaunty Knicks cap on his head and might he elicit high fives? What about ICE agents in Knicks jerseys? I tried to imagine Elon Musk \u2013 a man who has surely never thrown, caught or enjoyed watching a ball in flight in his life \u2013 attending a Knicks party and experiencing, possibly for the first time, a group of people who appeared genuinely pleased to see him.<\/p>\n

New York Knicks\u2019 star Karl-Anthony Towns (centre) celebrates with the team\u2019s owner, James Dolan (centre-right), in San Antonio after sealing the NBA championship, 13 June 2026. Photograph: Adam Davis\/EPA<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no knowing. All I know is that on Sunday morning, the stories started trickling in from New York<\/a> of a once-in-a-lifetime experience. A friend, out in Manhattan with a bunch of nerdy podcasters, pulled them into a bar for the tail end of the game and gave them the best night of their lives. My children\u2019s 13-year-old half-brother was out on the streets of the city celebrating until 1am. Video after video \u2013 of air traffic controllers at JFK airport saying \u201cgo Knicks\u201d at the end of dispatches giving permission to land; of people on those planes celebrating as every screen on board was tuned to the game; of Metropolitan Transportation Authority employees losing it on the subway and buses \u2013 captured a truly rare moment of city-wide unity.<\/p>\n

The scenes reminded me of Barack Obama\u2019s first presidential win in 2008 when, briefly, everyone in New York felt as if they were on the same side. I was in Harlem that night and people came out into the streets to bang pots and pans and hug strangers. And so it was this past weekend, when even the grousing was good-natured.<\/p>\n

Hard on the heels of Saturday night\u2019s celebrations was the inevitable audit by sports pundits of real v fake celebrity Knicks fans. I wasn\u2019t in New York for any of this, which makes me one of those creeps getting in on it from afar. Ben Stiller copped it<\/a> (\u201che gets [the tickets] for free \u2013 it\u2019s a joke!\u201d), as did Taylor Swift for supposedly being a fake fan. Only one front-row celebrity, Spike Lee, seemed to pass muster for being a paying season-ticket holder.<\/p>\n

\"NewNew York erupts in celebration after Knicks win first NBA title in 53 years \u2013 video<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Zohran Mamdani, who to that point had been fiercely dividing New Yorkers, emerged from the finals as everyone\u2019s hero. The mayor of New York\u2019s political acuity \u2013 signing an executive order suspending bedtimes for kids<\/a> across the city for as long as the Knicks were in the finals; popping up in bars, wearing his team strip over his shirt and tie \u2013 was as on display as his sports fanaticism.<\/p>\n

Mamdani is also an Arsenal<\/a> fan, and comparing the Knicks\u2019 championship win with Arsenal\u2019s Premier League triumph last month showed up interesting differences between the two cities. The Arsenal victory was grungier, possibly boozier and, although just as inclusive as the Knicks hysteria, light on the myth-making that went on at the weekend. North London might be mentioned in some of the Arsenal chants, but nothing on Earth celebrates itself the way New York does \u2013 less a distinction between Arsenal and Knicks fans than between Americans and Britons.<\/p>\n

New Yorkers take to the streets to celebrate the Knicks\u2019 victory, 13 June 2026. Photograph: Kyle Stevens\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Anyway, for a brief moment it was heaven, despite the people trying to extract teachable moments from the Knicks win by asking how we might use this spirit of togetherness in the future. (We can\u2019t; it\u2019s ephemeral, that\u2019s the whole point of live sporting events and, by the way, stop trying to turn everything into homework.)<\/p>\n

By law, any big sporting victory must be compared to historic euphoric events. In this case, scenes from New York at the weekend made me think of the Christmas armistice during the first world war. It\u2019s an alternative reality that will return to the city on Thursday, when the Knicks victory parade makes its way up Manhattan to City Hall and strange scenes will unfold. People will talk to each other on the subway; the crowd noise will be heard in New Jersey; the NYPD will receive hugs off passing New Yorkers who would otherwise dismiss them as Trump supporters from Staten Island. It will be beautiful \u2013 and then, by the nature of these things, it will be gone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a moment on Sunday morning when, scrolling through pages of content celebrating the New York Knicks\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":710919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-710918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}