'People outside of NYC -- for reasons I never understood -- miscalculate exactly how religious a town NYC actually is...we have two full-scale cathedrals and literally thousands of churches and other houses of worship jammed into a very, very small land mass.'
Those are nothing but empty relics of a noble past. The true sentiments of that city are manifest in those whom it votes for.
How are they empty? People are in them every week. St. John's the Divine isn't even completed yet. NYC just has different politics, which says nothing of its religious tradition.