New York has reclaimed its title as the best city in the world Between the Knicks' victory, Mamdani's first year in office, and the World Cup, the 'Big Apple' has rediscovered its verve

Muse of countless artists, epicenter of dozens of industries, central character of the greatest love stories. New York has always been synonymous with the American dream — the mecca for anyone who has ever felt the need to belong to something greater. Yet, at the start of this decade, something cracked. For those who, like this writer, lived through this change firsthand, the reasons were many: a string of failed administrations — from de Blasio's final years and the botched pandemic response to Eric Adams's disappointing tenure — the massive influx of "transplants", people who move to the city for a couple of years before moving on, the TikTok-ification of Brooklyn and the Village, and rents and the cost of living shooting through the roof, accelerating the gentrification of historically working-class Afro-Latino neighborhoods, from Harlem to parts of Queens. Suddenly, New York had become a victim of its own social media commodification, stripped of the authenticity that had made it irresistible for decades. At least until this year, because New York seems to have returned to its golden age.

How the Mamdani administration is saving New York City

If there is one face that captures this shift in atmosphere, it is that of Zohran Mamdani. At 34, he is the youngest mayor New York has elected in over a century, the first Muslim and the first socialist to lead the city. But above all, he has managed to do something that seemed impossible after the Adams years: convince New Yorkers that the future can be better than the present. His campaign, built around the theme of making the city economically accessible to everyone — from rents to transportation to the cost of living — spoke above all to a generation that New York had almost stopped feeling like home to.

Last April, just over a hundred days into his term, a poll conducted by the Marist Poll found that 56% of New Yorkers now believe the city is heading in the right direction, compared to 31% recorded in October 2025, while 48% approve of the new mayor's performance. A shift in perception that The Guardian described as a sign of a "newfound optimism" — a renewed faith in the city's future rather than mere approval of the new administration.

The summer of the Knicks, the World Cup, and the importance of community in New York

If Mamdani's election gave New Yorkers back their faith in the future, the Knicks' victory reminded them what it means to share the present. For weeks, New York went back to doing what it does best: spilling out into the streets. With every playoff win, wildly viral chants were born, like "my mayor Muslim, my bagels Jewish, my Christian Dior, Knicks in four", each one underscoring the importance of the multiculturalism long known as the melting pot.

After clinching the NBA title — the first since 1973 — the city erupted in a wave of celebrations in the streets and squares, filled with honking horns, chants, and strangers hugging and celebrating this monumental moment together. Yahoo Sports described a pulsating New York, with fans celebrating in bars, bodegas, and even from rooftops, as thousands of people flooded the streets of Manhattan into the early hours of the morning.

The Knicks' win was just a preview of the most exciting season to experience in New York. After all, as Bad Bunny sings in NUEVAYoL, sampling the classic by El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, "Si te quieres divertir / Con encanto y con primor / Solo tienes que vivir / Un verano en Nueva York." This summer, though, there is one more reason to be out in the streets: for the first time in history, the city is hosting some of the matches of the 2026 World Cup, bringing renewed attention to a soccer tradition that often takes a back seat in the United States — a story also told well by American Wedding, the nss sports documentary that opens with the saga of the New York Cosmos as the founding act of modern American soccer.

The rebirth of the real New York — not the TikTok version

Last June, Kiki's closed — the Greek restaurant that over the past decade had become the defining spot of Dimes Square, the micro-neighborhood between Chinatown and the Lower East Side that gave rise to one of the city's most interesting creative scenes. It was a place where emerging artists like The Dare and sombr passed through, before the neighborhood became the regular haunt of influencers, aspiring Carrie Bradshaws, new-wave Gordon Gekkos, and wannabe Julian Casablancases, all in search of their own New York fantasy. The closure came for tax reasons, with over a million dollars in unpaid taxes as reported by the New York Post, but it felt almost like an act of divine intervention.

Perhaps the city's renaissance runs through this too: the end of the New York built to go viral and feed fleeting fantasies, and the return of the authentic one, with all its contradictions. The New York of parks packed in summer, of ugly-but-delicious restaurants, of blocks that become small neighborhood microcosms, and of third places that spring up out of nowhere. For decades, New York was filtered through cinema, TV series, and glamour, building a myth that in some ways managed to capture the city's cultural zeitgeist, while at the same time being far too reductive. A phenomenon that continued in recent years through all the TikToks portraying an increasingly plastic version of city life. Today, however, the Big Apple seems to want to go back to being what it has always been: a city to be lived in before it is talked about. Even if that means coexisting with the occasional cockroach, the odd rat, and a subway that is dirty but gets you where you need to go.