Boston Derangement Syndrome

Super Bowl wins aside, New York seems to be dangerously close to developing the kind of unbecoming inferiority complex usually reserved for second-tier cities like . . . well, Boston, for example:

In Times Square and across the New York region, screaming fans jammed bars and after the Giants beat the New England Patriots, 17-14, in dramatic fashion in Super Bowl XLII, boisterous throngs filled the streets. The police deployed squad cars and mounted patrols to keep the exuberance under control across the city.

“Everybody’s a Giants fan tonight,” said John Johnson, 55, a native Floridian who ran out of the Millennium Hotel in Midtown with a double Crown Royal, neat, still in hand. “We knew there was going to be pandemonium, and we wanted to be a part of it.”

Scores of sports fans stampeded Times Square from neighboring hotels and restaurants, lining the intersection of 43rd Street and Broadway and Seventh Avenue. Officers on horseback yelled into megaphones, “Please do not block the crosswalk,” as they struggled to hold back the raucous, quickly forming crowd, which eventually stretched back four blocks.

. . .

One Sunnyside resident, Luis Pinzon, 27, was overcome with joy. “We finally beat Boston,” he said, wearing a Lawrence Taylor jersey. “That’s all I care about. We finally beat ’em. Not Boston. Undefeated Boston,” he said with vindictive relish. “That’s who we beat. As long as they won, I don’t care if the Yankees lose to the Red Sox for the next five years. I’m not going to complain. That’s enough. I’ll give my first-born child to — to — to whomever.”

Mr. Pinzon’s wife, Sonia Pinzon, 26, said she was trying to be supportive, but giving up a child was where she drew the line. “I don’t think so,” she said.