Kijun Times

The Empire State Building was illuminated in red, white and blue, with election results projected along the side of the building for the city to watch the action live. Times Square had a dozen competing screens projecting news of the election. Much as they do on New Year’s Eve, crowds gathered in suitably colorful attire — mostly red, white and blue — in hopes of celebrating with their compatriots.

All eyes were on New York on election day, with the presidential candidates holding dueling election parties 15 blocks apart in midtown Manhattan, and thousands of their supporters cheering them on.

A crisp, unseasonably warm autumn evening brought out the crowds in droves, but the mood soon dampened as the projections came in showing Republican Donald Trump doing far better than expected. Though Trump is a native son, New York City leans heavily Democratic — Manhattan voted for Clinton over Trump by 87% to 10% — and groans rippled through the crowd with the results.

“I am afraid to talk about this because I might start crying,’’ said Elizabeth Yusupova, 24, who was being comforted by friends at a rooftop bar on Fifth Avenue overlooking the Empire State Building. Behind her was the large projected face of a smiling Trump, who had been just declared the winner of Ohio.

“I was so excited to be voting for our first woman president,” she said. “I can’t believe this is happening.’’

Most of the patrons at the bar were foreigners, tourists and expatriates, who also seemed in shock that Clinton wasn’t the obvious winner.

“I don’t understand your country very well. This is confusing. Can you explain why anybody would vote for Trump?” asked Matias di Matteo, 28, an Argentinian advertising executive who was on vacation in New York.

“Trump is just like Berlusconi,’’ said Massimo Maresca, 39, an Italian who lives in New York, referring to the flamboyant former Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. “Nobody thought he would win because when they took the polls, voters didn’t want to admit they were voting for him, but in the end what they wanted was to be followers of a strongman.’’

Trump did have his supporters in this Democratic city. A few dozen  have been gathering regularly in front of the Trump Tower, the 58-story black-glass monolith where Trump himself lives in a penthouse apartment. On the sidewalk across the street, a man wearing nothing but bikini underwear with the words TRUMP strummed the guitar. More conventionally attired Trump fans handed out buttons and campaign literature.

“Trump will make America strong again. That’s what we want,’’ said Leah Bartholeme, a nurse who had emigrated from the Philippines.

As midnight passed with Trump leading but no winner declared, it wasn’t obvious where the post-election victory party would be held. Clinton’s campaign booked the huge Jacob K. Javits Convention Center with a symbolically glass-ceiling atrium. Trump was supposed to have his party in the midtown Hilton, 15 blocks away.

Outside Clinton’s campaign headquarters in Brooklyn, the streets were empty. A few campaign staffers trickled out, still wearing their Hillary 2016 gear and carrying leftover bright blue signs, mostly silent.