JOBURG FOR BARACK (3)

MY jealousy of the party at the Troyeville Hotel would have known no end if it wasn't for New York exploding with relief and joy on Tuesday night. Around the corner from our house is a spectacular bar, called Union Hall, and everybody who had watched the election returns there spilled onto the street after Obama's acceptance speech. The neighbourhood caught on in a flash, and a crowd of about a thousand people, dogs, children, the inevitable man with an aviary on his shoulder, firemen, the waste-removal workers and the police gathered to hang from lamp posts, stand on one another's shoulders and form prayer circles to shout: "Yes, we can!" and "USA! USA!" Graeme Simpson and I met each other for a cigarette at the corner to watch, and the rather wonderful Park Slope police simply parked their cars across the street to block off traffic. There was no way they were going to try to break up the party.

Here is a selection of Mikhael Subotzky's pics from the Troyeville. Looking at them I have to believe all those stories that are doing the rounds here about women at the Democratic National Convention trying to rip Obama's shirt from his pants.