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Le-verdict

News with a Local Lens

Scenes from observing the 2024 elections from New York: photos
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Scenes from observing the 2024 elections from New York: photos

Photo: David Dee Delgado/AFP/Getty Images

While a good number of New Yorkers may be home alone tonight, watching prestige TV reruns and trying to enter a fugue state, many of us are considering leaning into misery (or the joy) of watching the election results in numbers. Screaming and crying: it’s better together! To capture the mood, we sent our reporters across the city and asked readers for snapshots of their evenings, from the scene in front of Trump Tower to the sophisticated version of a potluck at a Chelsea gallery. Here’s what we’re seeing so far.

Photo: Camilia Fateh

A Tesla Cybertruck parked outside Trump Tower has become a canvas for Trump graffiti. The truck sat there all day and the spray paint was supplied by its owner, Dr. Boris Vitvitskiy, a physiatrist from Muncie, Indiana. Vitvitskiy invites spectators to paint his truck with messages of support for Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

Vitvitskiy says he drove the truck across the United States to “show people what a Cybertruck is.” He bought the truck from a friend in Ohio, then made stops in Texas, California, Nevada and Colorado. New York, on Election Day, is his last stop.

He urged passersby to sign the truck, saying: “If I leave and this truck isn’t destroyed with paint, I will be disappointed.” It’s New York, you know. A woman got into the truck and changed the music to play the theme song from Nickelodeon’s “Victorious.” A man who claimed to be from Italy brought a bottle of champagne, which Vitviskiy drank. “Honestly, I think he’s the president of the world. It will bring the world together,” he said. — Camilia Fateh

Photo: Adriane Quinlan

Inside the cylindrical theater built for a Carrie Mae Weems Show at the Gladstone Gallery, poet Terrence Hayes sat at a drum set and read from his book, American Sonnets for My Murderer Past and Future. The gallery hosted a Election Day Readingcurated by Precious Okoyomon, a poet who also works with food, who explained the free dinner she was cooking outside, a top-notch version of a neighborhood barbecue. As the sun set, artist Rirkrit Tiravanija unveiled a paella with Nigerian and Thai flavors, a dish that fellow artist-chef Quori Theodor said was “a sort of election dish – the practice of our lives”. An artsy crowd ate and sipped Modelos as the theater filled, with poet Anne Waldman watching from stage left, Lynne Tillman perched on a low couch and Padma Lakshmi in oversized aviators taking her place near the door. The party lasts until midnight. —Adriane Quinlan

Spotted in FiDi.
Photo: Brooke LaMantia

A truck owner drove his personal tank through the financial district.