It's been a crazy year, New York City. It's been a year filled with amazing TV, new restaurants, great moments and, yes, mistakes and regrets too.
It was also a year we fell in love with our city all over again.
Now, it's totally normal to turn look back, and gaze at our city retrospectively as the New Year approaches.
We're all tallying up our New Year's resolutions, making our New Year's Eve plans, and thinking contemplatively about everything that happened in the past year.
We'll just put it out there: some wild stuff happened in the city this year. Some of that wild stuff was tragic and unfortunate, some is positive and celebratory.
It makes sense that we'd be balancing both extremes in our wild city. Read on to find out the craziest NYC stories of 2015.
1. The East Village explosion
It was insane and tragic. On Thursday, March 26th 2015, a powerful explosion in the East Village collapsed two buildings and sparked a large fire. It destroyed three buildings on Second Avenue.
It also disastrously took the lives of two: 27-year-old Moises Ismael Locón Yac and 23-year-old Nicholas Figueroa. Their bodies were pulled from the rubble of Sushi Park, a restaurant that was destroyed in the blast, after three agonizing days of searching.
19 others were injured in the blast. There were, of course, dramatic rescues: one man climbed through smoke to look for stranded people and more rescuers pulled a woman to safety. More than 250 firefighters responded.
[anad]
One of the buildings destroyed in the blast was Pommes Frites, the beloved Belgian French fry shop.
"Pommes Frites is humbled by the outpouring of support from our devoted customers. We are buoyed by your comments and offers of assistance after the devastating explosion that rocked our world and brought our shop down," read a statement on their website.
Pommes Frites has since relocated to 128 MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village.
2. Chipotle sicknesses
We thought we'd always be able to count on Chipotle, right?
Wrong. In November, the Centers for Disease Control released an official update about Chipotle's E. coli infections. They started in October of 2015 and as of December 21st, one more person has been reported ill in Pennsylvania.
The Centers for Disease Control did report that new illnesses in this outbreak have substantially slowed since its peak in October, but still. We were severely shaken by the announcement that, in fact, someone in New York was ill from an E. coli infection connected to having eaten at Chipotle.
E. coli wasn't the only thing wrong with Chipotle. There have been outbreaks of norovirus, e. coli, and salmonella too. Chipotle has hospitalized and infected nearly 500 people this year.
Did we count on Chipotle for countless lunches, after-work dinners, and single taco snacks? You can bet we did. Have we slowed our Chipotle intake since the E. coli announcement? We absolutely have.
For now, we'll just have to eat at all of NYC's other amazing taco restaurants. Or we could hold out hope that Qdoba makes its way back to NYC.
3. The Mets made the World Series
Yup. That's right. For the first time since 2000, the Mets swung, pitched, and sprinted their way to the World Series.
There were a ton of a crazy happenings surrounding the series. During the playoffs, right before the Mets played the Los Angeles Dodgers, there was some trash talk going down between the two cities' public transportation agencies on Twitter.
The Los Angeles Metro tweeted "Hey @MTA, please tidy up the 7 train, @Dogers blue is coming to town." To which the MTA retorted, "Don't worry, @MetroLosAngeles - we sweep our subway just like the @Mets will sweep the @Dodgers."
[anad2]
Of course, we had the last laugh, as the Mets won the series 3-2.
Unfortunately, we lost the Series 4-1 to the Kansas City Royals, but it was still nice to prove that the Yankees aren't the only NYC baseball team that can make it big. That National League Championship the Mets won against the Chicago Cubs feels pretty good.
We're guessing the guy that got too ahead of himself, and preemptively tattooed the Mets' World Series victory on his skin is the craziest thing that happened the whole time.
,4. The subway got Wi-Fi
We thought it'd never happen, didn't we? As New Yorkers, we all pretty much resigned ourselves to the fact that the subway would forever be a perpetual black hole, bereft of cell phone service or Wi-Fi.
In 2015, that all changed. Starting in June, Transit Wireless brought Wi-Fi to 100 subway stations in Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx. Then, it started spreading.
By November, more than half of subway stations had that hot commodity: subway internet access.
[anad]
In fact, there's an initiative headed by Transit Wireless to bring Wi-Fi to every single subway station in NYC. It's quite the undertaking, since there are 469 subway stations in NYC.
Still, we believe in Transit Wireless since they've essentially done the impossible. We never thought we'd be able to text on the subway.
As of August, the train with the best cell service was the Q train. Followed closely behind were the R, and N trains. If you frequently ride these trains, you already know this. They have excellent cell service.
The worst trains as of August? The 4, 5 and 6, which, if you ride these trains often, you know is still the case. Like we said, we're still holding out hope.
5. Gay marriage was legalized
br_webb The @empirestatebldg couldn't have looked any more beautiful last Sunday night from aboard the @matineeusa yacht cruise. #LoveWins #MatineePride #NewYorkCity #EmpireStateBuilding #NYCPride
Okay, same sex marriage has been legal in NYC since June 24th, 2011, but the city definitely got down this summer to celebrate the federal legalization of same sex marriage.
We definitely pride ourselves on being liberal, accepting mofos. Also, the gay pride movement started in NYC outside the Stonewall Inn in 1969, which was designated an NYC landmark on June 23rd, 2015.
So obviously, we were thrilled when the law was handed down this past summer that anyone in the United States has the right to marry, whether they love someone of the same or opposite sex.
No, it wasn't just civilians rocking out. Cops were dancing. Thousands dressed in rainbow garb and stormed down 5th Avenue. It was a triumphant, celebratory moment, bursting with love, hope, and gratitude.
Sure, we can brag all we want that we beat most of the United States to the chase, but it's still wonderful to know that the rest of the country followed in our blazed path of equality. This was definitely one of the craziest NYC moments of 2015.
6. The Pope came
snap_or_die_joe The pope. #awesome #all_shots #boss #beautiful #candid #complete #composition #city #focus #follow #follow4follow #gram #centralpark #hashtag #insta #instagood #nyc #newyork #photoislife #picoftheday #photooftheday #pope #popenyc #NikonD3200 #nikonphotography #nikon_photography_ #view #thepope #popefrancis
This fall, the Pope visited NYC and it was wild.
Like, we mean it. It was really insane. On East 72nd Street, at the UN envoy Archbishop Auza townhouse where the Pope stayed, security measures included concrete barriers and sand-filled trucks.
There were also rooftop snipers, a bulletproof passageway, and bomb sniffing dogs. Yeah, it sounds like a lot but no, it wasn't enough.
Everywhere the Pope went, whether it was the address at the United Nations, his speech at the September 11 Memorial and Museum, or his visit to Our Lady Queen of Angels School in East Harlem, the roads surrounding the Pope's destination were shut down.
[anad2]
Thousands of New Yorkers crowded each of the Pope's destinations, and at each one, the Pope blessed everyone with his Pope holiness.
Oh, yeah, there was also a skyscraper sized Pope Francis projected on a building in Midtown, and a pizza shop that spent five hours concocting a pizza with the Pope on it: ricotta and raspberry skin, ricotta robe, anchovy cross, pineapple hat, and pepper-and-cucumber garments.
NYC definitely went all out for the Pope's visit, and no, we wouldn't have expected any less.
Check out 7 Worst Mistakes Every New Yorker Made in 2015.
[Feature Image Courtesy Instagram]