Celebrating an Obama Victory in NYC

by meyers | November 4, 2008 at 11:03 pm

1723 views | 77 Recommendations | 18 comments

Never before have I seen New Yorkers come together like I did tonight. As I walked home from a friends election night party, I watched as strangers on the street high five'd and even hugged each other - screaming out "OBAMA!!" and "YES WE DID!" as they passed. Folks driving by were honking their horns and their passengers were hanging out the windows screaming their heads off.

I could hear the screaming and cheering from a large crowd in Union Square more then 2 avenues away. I walked over to witness thousands of people singing, dancing, crowd surfing, and cheering in celebration of an Obama victory. The police were standing by doing their best to route the traffic around the hordes of people coming and going, and generally staying out of the way (great to see when they have a reputation for harassing the critical mass bikers and other gatherings that occur in the square).

The crowd, though very diverse in nature, was primarily younger university students from the nearby schools like NYU and The New School. They chanted everything from, "NO MORE BUSH", and "OBAMA!" to an impromptu and touching rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. I left feeling awestruck, with a great sense of belonging to the city I love and call my home, but most of all, I was proud to be an American again.

UPDATE 11:30am EDT: Videos have been added - while the crowds impromptu rendition of the star spangled banner was unexpected and even touching, my favorite was when two folks in the crowd held up the freshly printed NY Daily News papers with, "President Obama" - the crowd went wild. To bad that youtube clobbered the quality of the videos though, they look crisp like the photos in the originals and are smooth - on yt they are choppy and hard to make out, but they still give you an amazing sense of what it was like to be there last night - the photos just can't due the crowd justice

5 See all footage | View Slideshow

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nagba

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 00:41 on November 5th, 2008

meyers, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Sanjay Jha

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 01:07 on November 5th, 2008

meyers, I like this story. It's good stuff. Celebration of his victory started all over America and elsewhere in the world. Obama supporters around the country shouted came on the street, after the election results showed that the USA has elected nation's first black president.

Locally, crowds were joyous when Mr. Obama's name was called and even earlier in the night, when the Electoral College started to swing in his direction. After the election was assured, hundreds of Howard University students cheered, chanted "Yes, we did," and sang together in celebration.

Elsewhere in D.C., motorists honked their car horns and residents set off fireworks. Shouts of "Obama!" also rang out into the night.

Andrew Wiseman, 29, headed out to celebrate cautiously on U Street just before the election was called late Tuesday night.

"It's been 12 years, basically, since we won an election, so I'm looking forward to it," he said.

The crowd inside Ben's Chili Bowl roared with applause as each state was called for the Democratic presidential candidate, especially when the District was called in his column, just after the polls closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday night.

Nearly 100 people crowded into the restaurant to watch Election Day results, which put the first black man in the White House.

JeffHuang

at 01:09 on November 5th, 2008

It really is incredible how he has brought people together.

JeffHuang

at 01:48 on November 5th, 2008

Jamie Friedlander also has a piece on the celebrations and reactions in Times Square. http://my.nowpublic.com/world/election-viewing-party-times-square-party-union-square

Ravi Dixit

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 02:10 on November 5th, 2008

meyers, I like this story. It's good stuff.

jjenet

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 04:27 on November 5th, 2008

meyers, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Rhonda J Mangus

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 06:26 on November 5th, 2008

meyers, I like this story. It's good stuff.

András Bártházi

at 07:49 on November 5th, 2008

It's nice to see from outside the US that Obama has this great effect on Americans. I hope he will be as perfect on the presidential tasks as he was about his campaign, and makes US more friendlier and maybe happier place.

markmayhew

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 07:51 on November 5th, 2008

meyers, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Jarrett Martineau

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at 08:02 on November 5th, 2008

meyers, what an incredible series of events and a truly historic moment. Thanks for this; it sounds like an amazing night.

meyers

at 08:16 on November 5th, 2008

videos uploaded; youtube clobbered them tho, they are choppy and super dark / hard to see... sucks cause the originals are super crisp and smooth, i'll try a site that supports hd videos later today, but check them out - they give you a true sense of how amazing the night was