'Kick him out': New Yorkers celebrate outside Trump Tower on 5th Avenue

Donald Trump’s hometown erupted in celebration following reports of Joe Biden’s victory against the president in the 2020 election, sending New York City residents into the streets to savour his defeat.

But in Manhattan, along the Fifth Avenue where the president once suggested he could shoot someone and get away with it, police barricades blocked the streets surrounding Trump Tower, and fresh plywood covered the windows on the street’s famous strip of luxury retailers for a protest and riot that never came.

Instead, while the president raged on Twitter after a round of golf, small crowds of New Yorkers stood against the barricades to breathe a sigh of relief on the streets surrounding the building where he began his 2016 presidential campaign launch — on the day it came to an end.

A man who identified himself to The Independent as Knife waved a Mexican flag while yelling obscenities in Spanish, punctuated by “kick him out”; on another corner, a man plugged a microphone into a speaker mounted on a bicycle to rally the crowds on the other sides of the street, separated only by barricades, a handful of police officers and empty streets.

Rocky Garcia, who recently moved back to the US from Europe in time to cast his ballot for the former vice president, popped a bottle of Champagne on the sidewalk on 57th Street.

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“I came here for this moment,” he told The Independent. “I knew we had it in the bag, but I wanted to make sure we had it.”

Shortly before noon on Saturday, New Yorkers blared noisemakers, banged pots and pans and blasted music from their balconies, windows, fire escapes, rooftops, and on sidewalks and outside moving cars, kicking off a chorus that lasted into the night.

Thousands of people joined rallies across the city, from Columbus Circle to Central Park, Washington Square Park and Prospect Park, where rallies and dance parties hailed the president’s upcoming exodus and reclaimed the streets after a summer of marches and vigils in the wake of police killings of Black Americans met by police violence.

Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer joined a crowd in Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza to raise a fist in victory as the crowd sang the chorus to “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye.”

Several marches converged on Times Square, filled with thousands of others, and flowing over with joy on an unseasonably warm afternoon, as impromptu celebrations continued well into the night.

In winding traffic through midtown, passengers held signs out of windows and drive honked horns in unison.

On 16 June 2015, the reality TV personality and real estate mogul stepped onto the building’s golden escalator with his wife Melania Trump and made his slow descent, with Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” as his soundtrack to announce his candidacy in the 2016 presidential election, which he would eventually win.

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The stunt from inside the 58-floor skyscraper — headquarters for the Trump Organization and a residence of the Trumps — included his speech in which he called Mexicans “rapists” within two minutes into his remarks. He also raged against Mexico, China and Japan on the economy, asking, “When did we beat Japan at anything?”

He also promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which his administration has brought to the US Supreme Court, and criticised then-president Barack Obama for playing golf. Five and a half years later, as voting results from Pennsylvania secured Mr Biden the electoral college votes to win the presidency, Mr Trump visited his golf course for nearly the 300th time since entering office.

Christopher Gould moved to New York in 1978, a year before the Trump Organization closed Bonwit Teller's flagship store on 5th Avenue before Mr Trump demolished it in 1980 to make way for his skyscraper.

Mr Gould held up a sign reading “Dinged Don The Wicked Grinch Is Dead.”

“It was such a great day to get rid of that man in the White House,” said Linda Louey, who smiled under her mask while she held up a cardboard sign reading “You’re Fired,” the president’s catchphrase from his reality competition TV series The Apprentice.

“It’s going to be so nice to have civility in the White House — people who are civil,” she said.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was her likely first choice, “but I knew Biden would be the one.”

“He had to be,” she said. “He could bring everyone together.”

If the future former president returns to Trump Tower, “that’ll be fine,” she said, laughing. “So long as he doesn’t take up residence in the White House again.”