Tuesday evening dinner in downtown Manhattan became a rushed affair. The signal on the BlackBerry was not too strong, we were desperate to get the result from Indiana. And how could you embrace Tuesday night without Indiana?

The waiter kept asking: “Got Indiana yet?” But we couldn’t get Indiana, so to hell with the coffee, we got the bill instead and headed for Poisson Rouge, a Greenwich Village underground music hall transformed by two giant screens into an 800-strong election party. Nerves, hugs, the whooping as the results came in; if there was a Republican in there, they were not letting it be known.

Everyone had their story of the day. How long did it take you to vote? An hour. Two. Amazing, I said, you cannot imagine that in the UK. But the answer was always the same: that no one had imagined it here either. “I would never have queued before.” “We’ve never been like this about an election before.” Or, alternatively: “This is the greatest night of my life.”

In the UK, I have only ever experienced such an atmosphere during a World Cup. Hordes crammed in public bars, the unity of feeling, total immersion in the contest. Will Gazza score? Will Obama win Indiana? Football can make people cry. In the Poisson Rouge, the Obama address had that very effect.

But to feel New York embracing this, we headed out where taxis were braying their horns. “I am just so goddam happy,” said mine, a white man, as he dropped us at Times Square. “I never thought I’d see this.”

We tried to cross Broadway but we could not. It was now 12.30am but the crowds on the pavement were three or four thick, people dancing, singing, celebrating, furiously clicking their cell phones to record pictures of history. The police had been forced to fence off the street because otherwise the whole of Manhattan would have ground to a halt.

This was an astonishing party, multi-racial, sober and yet utterly inebriated on the result of the election. People walking up and down the sidewalk held their hands aloof, high-fiving anyone and everyone they passed. And everywhere, choruses of Obama’s message erupted “Yes we can! Yes we can!” Pockets of cheers would break out from different corners of the Square and you would stand on tip-toe to see what had happened — but nothing had happened, simply more of the same, a colossal celebration of an election victory.

The cabs and cars hooted as they drove through, waving at the crowd. One quiet cabbie — was he the only Republican out for the night? — was stopped as two young ladies leaned in through his window to honk his horn for him.

On the edge of the Square, we simply stopped and watched and enjoyed. The Obama T-shirts sold out fast but the wide-eyed, can-you-believe-it spirit remained long and late. And it was ubiquitous yesterday too.

Times Recommends

• UN may halt 400-year-old 'freedom of the seas'
• Where the Rosetta belongs can’t be set in stone
• Gas deal on hold, but Ukraine may pay in the end