New York is quieter than usual, everyone is waiting with bated breath

Election week is upon us and it feels almost surreal that it’s finally here. At the end of my street, where “VOTE HERE” stickers decorate the side of a building and the pavement, a “Democracy Bus” populated by endlessly enthusiastic volunteers has appeared. They give out granola bars and bottled water to people who have stood in line to cast their ballots (or, as I found out yesterday, random British passers-by who don’t have the right to vote but do have a tendency to immediately accept free food when it’s proffered) and they’re apparently so effective at keeping people in line that they’ve even caught the attention of local celebrities. A few days ago, a fully masked Paul Rudd joined them to hand out cookies. Much to my chagrin, the news of his appearance only reached me after he’d disappeared out of Brooklyn and back to his large and beautiful home in Rhinebeck, upstate New York.

The Barclays Center – usually a basketball stadium, then a food bank during lockdown – is now a gigantic voting hall, and its huge LCD screen displays admonishments to “VOTE, NYC” rather than the results of the latest escapades from the Brooklyn Nets. People during the Halloween weekend wandered up and down local streets decorated in those now-famous “I VOTED” stickers. Many people added the stickers to costumes (a lot of Spider-Men, black cats and skeletons have voted in the American elections, it seems – perhaps this is the voter fraud Trump’s always talking about). Now, as pumpkins rot on brownstone stoops and the remains of ghostly decorations hang in the trees outside blocks of flats (someone even stuck a gigantic plastic snake’s head on the end of our building’s outdoor ventilator), the message is everywhere. “I voted!” scream bats hanging from doorways. “I voted!” say the robes of looming witches still standing in people’s front yards. “Make sure you voted!” shout Democratic volunteers behind makeshift stalls in the streets leading up to the park.

New York was the scene of some exciting events during 2019 and early 2020 – I won’t forget the time Elizabeth Warren held one of her famous “selfie lines” in Washington Square Park, for instance – but it becomes strangely disconnected during an electoral season. We’re used to being the centre of attention as New Yorkers, used to our skyline being projected on to televisions across the world and people who want to “make it” jostling with those who already made it in central Manhattan. But New York City is blue all the way through: there’s no chance it’s going to fall to Trump (despite the fact that a few obnoxious MAGA campaigners managed to block off some roads in the past few days). And now, as the election unfolds in front of us, all eyes are on Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina. People who want to be part of the action are getting on planes from JFK or trains from Grand Central and heading elsewhere. It’s all very disorienting.

Weirdly, the streets of New York are quieter now than they have been in a long time. Everything is orderly; people are waiting with bated breath. It’s the calm before the storm, for sure. But it’s also a testament to the fact that even though New York is “what America looks like” to millions around the globe, when it comes down to it, electorally it just… doesn’t really matter. It’s a humbling truth for the Big Apple, and a fact more people across the world watching the US election would do well to bear in mind.