From cafes to fan zones: World Cup fever sweeps NYC and New Jersey
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Azad Essa
on
Wed, 06/24/2026 - 13:53
Middle East Eye travels across New York City and New Jersey to capture fans enjoying the World Cup
On Steinway Avenue in Queens, home to a large Arab diaspora, supermarkets, hookah cafes, and coffee shops are packed with Moroccan and Egyptian fans (Azad Essa/MEE)
Bicycle delivery workers from Burkina Faso take a brief pause between shifts in Harlem, using their phones to follow football matches (Azad Essa/MEE)
An Egyptian fan watches the World Cup from a custom-built audio-visual setup on a Queens sidewalk (Azad Essa/MEE)
In New Jersey, where one of the largest Haitian diasporas in the United States has taken root, fans have come out in full force for their team (Azad Essa/MEE)
At World Cup 2026, questions of immigration are impossible to separate from the tournament (Azad Essa/MEE)
Some grocers in Astoria turned their storefronts into impromptu World Cup watch parties, drawing fans onto the streets (Azad Essa/MEE)
Egyptian fans flood Steinway Avenue in Queens after their team's historic victory over New Zealand (Azad Essa/MEE)
Senegalese fans have travelled from across the United States to watch their team in action in New York (Azad Essa/MEE)
In towns like Paterson, New Jersey, the tournament has brought cafes to life on the weekend as they turn into community hubs (Azad Essa/MEE)
Darrell Etienne, brother of Haitian forward Derek Etienne Jr, attends a watch party in Paterson in honour of the Haitian community in the town (Azad Essa/MEE)
With a large Brazilian community in New Jersey, several other immigrant communities have also adopted the team for the tournament (Azad Essa/MEE)
In Astoria, cafes have been overflowing with patrons, especially during matches involving teams from the Middle East (Azad Essa/MEE)
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