We Were Never Going to Burn Our City Down

Edited by Sam Thielman

SO THERE WERE ARRESTS. According to the (ahem) NYPD, 63 people were arrested last night for what Fox 5 summarizes as "assault on a police officer, criminal possession of a weapon, criminal mischief, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and obstruction of governmental administration." Someone was shot and a few others stabbed or cut; that's fucked up and I hope they're OK. I note that according to the reporting, all this took place around the Madison Square Garden watch parties.  [World Cup transit blockades certainly didn’t help matters. Cops wouldn’t let thousands of pedestrians cross the street between 34th and 28th even though those streets were closed to cars.—Sam.] As someone said on social media earlier this weekend, that's the prime location for Knicks content creation, as opposed to Knicks fandom. They set an (empty) school bus on fire near Port Authority so everyone could get it on vertical video.

I would not be a Brooklynite if, even now in this moment of unity, I didn't observe that the way they do it in other boroughs doesn't compare.

The vibes in Fort Greene, where I watched with my beloved friends Noah Shachtman and Lindsey Adler, were the best I have ever encountered. Full stop. Everyone was outside. It wasn't just the mob in and outside Fancy Free, the much-written-about bar next to 40 Acres And A Mule. (Noah, Lindsey and a bunch of other friends watched last year's conference semis there.) It was spilling outside every bar on Fulton or Lafayette. It was the sound system set up outside BAM, the lawn chairs brought outside on a humid day in June where the sweat on your upper lip didn't matter, because we were all going to bear witness to something we've wanted for 53 years. And we were going to bear witness together. 

After it happened—after the Jalen Brunson Game, the thing the analysts and the podcasts and the reels had been noting hadn't happened yet—thousands of people who had been inside ran onto Fulton, and from there, Flatbush Avenue. Buses became traffic cones. People climbed onto the buses and danced. People fell off traffic lights and laughed it off. Someone sprayed me with champagne. Portable speakers let everyone know that we got a hundred guns, a hundred clips and we're from New York. 

But just like 50 said on his response track: A hundred guns, a hundred clips, why I don't hear no shots? 

(In fairness, after OG sank the second free throw that put us up four and clinched the game, we did hear gunshots.) 

Because despite all the fearmongering, the perennial tool of those who fear the people of New York, we were outside to party with one another, not to hurt one another, and not to hurt the place we love. That is the lesson. That is how we are. Last night the borough—I won't speak for places I wasn't at—showed who we are. I walked down Flatbush Avenue and experienced nothing but joy. 

I could have walked all the way home, but I wanted to put my faith to the test. I got on the 2 train—ground transportation was really not an option—to see if anything was different. One packed ride later in the bleary hours before dawn and it was the same. High-energy and peaceful. 

During halftime we took a walk around. There were police barricades blocking off northbound access to Lafayette. People were loud outside of the bars, smoking, aggressively agreeing in our characteristic Brooklyn way, taking the edge off, letting the pressure out. We were down at the half—as we were for most of the Finals, Games 2 and 3 excepted—and no one was taking it out on each other. 

I turned to Noah and said: It can be like this all the time. All of us out here, together. 

He replied: Get out of my head. 

The Knickerbockers, united, will never be defeated. 

See you at the parade.