I keep trying to name what got lifted that night, and the closest I can come is a set of instructions we’d all been quietly following. A public is, among other things, a set of beliefs about other people, and ours had curdled.

From the pandemic: that another person’s breath was a danger. From Biden, more gently: that a public is largely unnecessary, that we could let the grown-ups handle it and stay spectators to our own governance. From Trump: that a public is a mob, everyone in it a competitor, softness something you’d pay for. From Adams: that the subway car was a hazard to be scanned.

And then a Knicks championship run unlearned it for us. The win picked every one of them up off the street and held them there, suspended for a few hours, a couple of feet above the city.

There were just people dancing and embracing strangers, a public that looked at itself - all of itself, pressed together, messy, completely nuts even - and for one night did not flinch.