As soon as the news that former vice president Joe Biden is projected to be the next president of the United States buzzed on their phones, Americans gathered spontaneously on street corners and front lawns — honking their horns, banging pots and pans, starting impromptu dance parties — as an agonizingly vitriolic election and exhausting four-day wait for results came to an end.

Church bells rang out over South Street in Jamaica Plain, where celebration erupted in the streets. On a quiet block in Somerville, a cyclist let out a celebratory cry — “Biden! Biden! Woo!”— prompting some residents to clap from their windows. A vehicle flying a Biden-Harris flag drove through Maverick Square in East Boston as the driver beeped the horn. A man carrying a rainbow-colored flag that read “Pace” (the Italian word for peace) walked down Meridian Street.