Down in Alphabet City this past Saturday afternoon, at the same time the Mets played the electric San Diego Padres in Queens, a free punk rock show enlivened Tompkins Square Park. Leah Hennessey, the singer in a band that bears her surname, was talking about how 2021 will be the new “summer of love in New York City.”

David Johansen stood a few feet from the band. He was the frontman for the legendary New York Dolls and later became Buster “Hot Hot Hot” Poindexter. It turned out he was also Hennesey’s stepfather. It was easy last year to forget how you saw interesting people just leaving the house in non-pandemic New York.

The park was flush with people dancing and howling. A walk west on St. Mark’s Place after the show revealed a reborn town frothing over: Outdoor tables remaining in place as the indoors opened, newly-legal cannabis smoke everywhere, and I swear, more people under 30 and fewer strollers than I’ve seen in this overpriced town all century.

A few hours later up in Penn Station, folks in Pete Alonso jerseys mixed with revelers arriving for the night shift. The Mets had wrapped another win. Still later, the Strokes reopened Irving Plaza. John Mulaney and AOC were there. Videos showed a crowd ready to blow the roof of the joint.

We present these details on a baseball website to highlight a pair of related points: This might be an historically fun summer in New York, one that is remembered for a century -- and the Mets are uniquely positioned to become a part of it.

By an accident of timing, the team has a chance to do more than just participate in a pennant race: If they are up to the challenge, they might be able to transcend their sleepy sport and become part of the Summer of ‘21 in NYC. A deep playoff run this year could be even more memorable than usual if it bumps into the zeitgeist.

Back in 2019, SNY produced an excellent documentary called “62,000 to One -- Three Teams, One City, One Year.” The film marked the 50th anniversary of Mets, Jets and Knicks championships that occurred amidst forces and events that had nothing to do with sports.

It's often a stretch to relate sporting events to larger societal issues, and lesser efforts to do so can often come off as strained (trust me on this, having written a few of them). Joe Namath and Tom Seaver’s greatness had nothing to do with unrest, Woodstock and war. The timing was coincidental.

But the popular imagination loves to conflate historic times with historic games. There’s no doubt that part of what made those ‘69 teams worthy of the doc treatment half a century later was the context in which they succeeded.

With the city at the beginning of a moment that might be more Roaring Twenties than 1960s, any team that wants to be compelling has a chance to grab a piece of that energy. So far, the Yankees have abdicated.

Popular in the Community