People attend a watch party at 230 Fifth Rooftop Bar in New York City.
Photo: Andrew Kelly/Reuters
While a fair number of New Yorkers may be at home alone tonight, watching prestige-TV reruns and trying to enter a fugue state, plenty of us plan to lean into the misery (or joy) of watching the election results in numbers. Screaming and crying — better together! To capture the mood, we sent our reporters all over the city and asked for reader snapshots of their nights out, from the scene in front of Trump Tower to a Chelsea gallery’s highbrow version of a potluck. Here’s what we’re seeing so far.
Photo: Camilia Fateh
A Tesla Cybertruck parked outside of Trump Tower has become a canvas for Trump graffiti. The truck has been there all day, and the spray paint cans were provided by its owner, Dr. Boris Vitvitskiy, a physiatrist from Muncie, Indiana. Vitvitskiy is inviting onlookers to spray-paint his truck with messages in support of Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
Vitvitskiy says he has driven the truck across the United States to “show people what a Cybertruck is.” He bought the truck from a friend in Ohio and then stopped in Texas, California, Nevada, and Colorado. New York, on Election Day, is his final stop.
He urged people passing to sign the truck, saying, “If I leave and this truck isn’t destroyed with paint, I’ll 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 said he was from Italy brought over a bottle of Champagne, which Vitviskiy proceeded to chug. “Honestly, I think he’s the president of the world. He’s gonna bring the world together,” he said. — Camilia Fateh
Photo: Adriane Quinlan
Inside the cylindrical theater built for a Carrie Mae Weems show at Gladstone Gallery, the poet Terrence Hayes sat in front of a drum set and read from his book, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin. The gallery was hosting an Election Day reading organized by Precious Okoyomon, a poet who also works with food, which explained the free dinner she was cooking out front, a blue-chip version of a block-party BBQ. Around sunset, the artist Rirkrit Tiravanija unveiled a paella with Nigerian and Thai flavors, a dish that fellow artist-chef Quori Theodor said was “kind of our election dish — the praxis of our lives.” An artsy crowd ate and sipped Modelos as the theater filled up, with the poet Anne Waldman looking on from stage left, Lynne Tillman perching on a low settee, and Padma Lakshmi in oversize aviators taking a spot by the door. The party goes until midnight. — Adriane Quinlan
Spotted in FiDi.
Photo: Brooke LaMantia
A truck owner drove their personal float through the Financial District.
