It’s 9.20 on a Thursday morning, the last wave of commuters heading to the offices of Midtown Manhattan is about to end. The river of men and women crowds the subway cars with composure. Everyone immersed in their own things, apparently somewhere else. Suddenly, the C train headed to West 72nd Station is stopped. From the loudspeaker the driver tells the passengers to lie down on the ground: there has been a shooting on 69th and an armed man has fled into the subway, probably running away along the tracks. Moments of panic, then the cold blood of New Yorkers wins: the doors open, even if the train is not in the station, and police officers guide passengers along the concrete walkway at the base of the tunnel. Luckily the platform is nearby, just a few steps are enough to reach it and return to the surface. It’s another day of ordinary survival in New York, where you have to build armor thick enough to defend yourself from the growing daily harshness, and elastic enough to enjoy the opportunities of a metropolis that for millions of people still represents the quintessence of the American dream . This is a city that has always struggled to maintain its balance between opulence and degradation, but this time the challenge is more difficult: many of those thousand lights from Jay McInerney’s novels, if not turned off, are certainly in terrible condition. New York’s contradictions have always been there. Once the specter of the pandemic has passed, the city has returned to its usual rhythms, but it is difficult to deny the great crisis that the metropolis is experiencing: skyrocketing prices, a widespread sense of insecurity, the mayor under investigation for corruption.
And now that Donald Trump is preparing to inaugurate a new term in the White House, the picture for the city becomes even more confusing. The longtime liberal stronghold has seen consensus for the Democrats erode. In the last elections, Kamala Harris won over the electors of New York with 68 percent, leaving Trump at 30. But four years ago Joe Biden won by 53 points. The Bronx, predominantly Hispanic, chose the tycoon. And in Queens, where Trump was born, the vote for him went from 21.8 four years ago to 38. In every county of the metropolis, even in the Upper East Side of the rich progressives, Trump has grown.
Fear of crime, inflation and the presence of immigrants contributed to the Republican turn: in East New York, between Brooklyn and Queens, prostitution in broad daylight sparked protests. In 2024, over 210 thousand illegal immigrants arrived in the city. The flow began in 2022 when Texas Governor Greg Abbott “shipped” them here on buses. Many ended up at the Roosevelt Hotel, on Fifth: closed during the pandemic, like other large hotels, it was converted into a reception center in 2023. In one year the Roosevelt hosted 150 thousand people, almost 2,800 a week. Now they call it the “new Ellis Island.”
In addition to the welcome, Democratic Mayor Eric Adams guaranteed each family a $350 per week prepaid card. The measure became a battlehorse of Republicans, who accused Democrats of giving away money to immigrants while American citizens were under the grip of inflation. Immediately after the elections, Adams announced that from January the cards will no longer be distributed: will this be enough to revive the mayor’s public image? Adams is the paradigm of the crisis of a city divided between the cult of the image and real life: in office since 2022, ambitious and controversial, he was a New York police officer, state senator, president of Brooklyn City Hall before arriving in the City Hall. During the electoral campaign, one of his slogans was Get stuff done, get things done: the acronym Gsd still stands out on the hats and jackets displayed by the mayor during public outings. The “sheriff” has spectacularized the city administration. A different outfit for every occasion: the sweatshirt in working-class contexts, the pinstripe suit for an institutional audience, the extravagant tailored suit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art gala. A coat hanger with ready-to-use combinations always travels with him in the service limousine . But “the mayor who gets things done” has started the last year of his mandate on an uphill climb. He has been under investigation since the end of September: even before being elected he would have been at the center of an exchange of favors. He allegedly requested and obtained luxury trips paid for by businessmen including people close to the Turkish government. Under federal law it is a very serious crime. In 2021, two months before the election, Adams allegedly pressured the fire brigade to turn a blind eye to safety regulations and speed up the opening of a building opposite the United Nations complex, intended for the Turkish diplomatic corps. He refused to resign, announcing that he will run again in 2025. Meanwhile, New York faces its battles every day, starting with that of prices. According to Payscale, a platform that collects data on the cost of living, the cost of living in New York is 130 percent higher than the rest of America. Above all, the cost of housing, more than 400 percent of the national average, and food costs, plus 15 percent, weigh heavily. The latest estimates from Rentcafe, a real estate ad portal, say that on average in Manhattan people pay five thousand dollars in rent for a 65 square meter apartment. However, Giorgio Armani inaugurated his headquarters on Madison Avenue, a 12-story building, and Flavio Briatore a new restaurant on Lafayette Street. The nightlife pulsates with lights and stars. And it coexists with degradation.
Just go down the subway stairs: the homeless bivouack in the corners or on the benches. Sometimes randomly chosen victims are pushed onto the tracks. Heavy climate, but perhaps not so unbearable for New Yorkers. «I don’t want to be dominated by fear» explains Patricia Geremia, executive assistant and administrative coordinator at the Guggenheim Foundation. «Is the subway dangerous? I always wait for the train leaning against a wall, or behind a column. If they push me, in the worst case scenario I’ll break my nose.” Raised in Queens, Geremia has lived in Manhattan for years. «Do you know what this city was in the seventies? A nightmare: every green area was a piece of jungle that no one dared to cross even during the day. Central Park, until the foundation of the conservation body in 1980, was a no-man’s land.” The resilience of New Yorkers is the ace in the hole: «When I’m in a risky situation, I imagine being a policewoman and when you do that the others don’t come to bother you. Works. Once a man on the street had shouted at me: if I had looked scared, he would have taken over. Instead I faced it. In the most New York accent I could, I asked him if he wasn’t ashamed. Eventually he left and almost apologized to me. I’m not saying it’s simple, but it can be done.” Central Park remains a place to avoid when darkness falls, but it is also the place where hope is reborn. Here, at the finish line of the New York Marathon, on the first Sunday of November, arrived Nev Schulman, who had broken his neck just three months earlier in a car accident, and then ran as a guide to his blind friend, Francesco Magisano. «Running among New Yorkers who cheer you on» he says «was for me the triumph of a community that never gives up». Maybe those who live there are right: the Big Apple could do it once again, against all odds. Because, as John Steinbeck wrote, it is a horrendous, dirty, corrupt city, the competition is deadly. “But there’s one thing about New York: once you’ve lived there, and it’s become your home, nowhere else is good enough.”
