Last year, Jennifer Shoemaker, a longtime Knicks fan, was feeling devastated. Her friend group of 10 years had dissolved. She was single and had no family in the city.
“It really broke me,” she said, her voice cracking. “I was so lonely.”
But lately her depression has abated. Her hopes are up. Much of it, she says, is because of the Knicks.
It’s not just because they have won 13 games in a row. (Although that alone has been uplifting.) It’s because New York City has transformed into a “love fest,” said Ms. Shoemaker, 45, an artist and caterer who lives on the Upper East Side.
Before the team’s winning streak, people met each other with silence and averted eyes. Now, she added, “the vibes are immaculate.”
On Monday, while in Times Square wearing her white Knicks shorts, strangers greeted Ms. Shoemaker with an exuberant chant: “Let’s go Knicks!”
During the last two games, she attended watch parties with new friends, women she met through the Discord group Knicks Girls HQ.
Her family members have been calling and texting to say that they’re rooting for her.
“It’s just made me feel like I have a place in the world again,” she said. “And I hadn’t felt that in a long time.”
Despite living in the most populous city in the country, more than half of New Yorkers report feeling lonely at least some of the time. But as the Knicks continue their historic N.B.A. finals run, the team’s success has spawned a renewed sense of community. (Maybe it’s no coincidence that Game 3 happens to fall on National Best Friends Day.)
That solidarity is something that Jonathan Haidt, author of “The Anxious Generation,” refers to as “collective effervescence.”
“We are built for shared sacredness,” he wrote recently on Instagram. “Whether through religion, spirituality, meditation, music or art, there are moments when we transcend the mundane and feel a hint of something more vast and meaningful.”
That shared identity bridges divides, cutting through the fragmentation of daily life. And offering hope.
Christina Caron is a Times reporter covering mental health.
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