Ok. So it's cannon that Behemoth's third attack was on New York. This isn't a plot hole, but there is a lot we don't know about it. And it was almost certainly a major turning point, the first city in the global north to face an endbringer attack. Yes the cape death count had been high before, but Behemoth's previous attacks were in Iran and Brazil, places where the average American doesn't give thought to.
Now, the reason why I'm making this post is mostly because I've lived in NYC my entire life, so it's interesting to speculate on what the one confirmed enbringer attack was like. I know enough about New York to know what a Behemoth attack on here might be like. If anyone else lives somewhere with a confirmed enbringer attack that isn't elaborated on I'd love to see your theories on what happened.
So, this is what I think the attack was like:
First off. We have cannon information on Earth Bet's New York during Weaver/Skitter's career. So we get an idea of how it effected the city. We know that New York still is the most populated city in America, and we know that it's still the center of a lot of the American economy. That is to say; we know that whatever Behemoth did it didn't completely destroy New York, neither as a population center or an economic center. So my theory for what the attack was like has to take into account that this is something that the city bounced back from by 2011.
We also know that Behemoth (and the enbringers as a whole) gain new tactics over time. This is his third attack, he's not going to be as advanced as he was when we see him during his final attack on New Delhi. We also know what enbringers want: to cause devastation upon humanity and to act as a worthy foe for capes. He's not a rampaging monster who doesn't know where he's going, and he's not a millitary weapon trying to destroy the tactically optimal target. He has a plan, but it's a plan that's based on fighting capes and causing terror.
So I don't think Behemoth emerged in Manhattan. We'd see more of its effects on the city if he did. And more importantly, it's an island, and he's the land based enbringer. He might be able to emerge on a small island is he really wants to, but this is his third attack. However, there is a part of New York that's attached to the mainland, and that's the Bronx, and that's a much better target for him for several reasons, not just the land thing.
Now, the Bronx, being the only mainland borough of NYC, has suburbs right next to it (also, to make some of what I say make sense later, I should probably clarify that the Bonx is NYC's northern edge). The Bronx is also New York's poorest and highest crime borough, and the suburbs just to the north of it are some of the richest suburbs in the state. You basically have a low income urban area, and a high income suburban area right next to eachother. This is important to what I think Behemoth's attack did, he knows about humans, and he's actively designing his attack around class division, and how humans react when people of different classes die.
So, on March 26th, 1994, nearly a year after Behemoth attacked São Paulo, Behemoth emerges just north of NYC, somewhere around Yonkers. Americans dismissed his earlier attacks on Brazil and Iran as third world problems, and now he's just emerged in a wealthy suburb. He's emerged on a Saturday when most people are in their homes getting a higher kill count then he otherwise would. If anyone does work weekends they likely lose their spouse and children in the attack. This is probably the first time the enbringers are really taken seriously by the American public.
He then moves downward ti the city proper, attacking the Bronx. Legend is probably the first cape he's up agaisnt, but others quickly join in. Either this is the first time the enbringer truce is really utilized, and we get villains in the enbringer fight for the first time, or it isn't a thing yet and we get villains profiting off of the endbringer fight. Behemoth makes it pretty far into the Bronx, possibly crossing the Harlem river, but the northern tip of Manhattan is similar enough to the Bronx that the difference isn't that important for the scope of this theory. Most of the Bronx and northern Manhattan is evacuated by the time he gets there, possibly with cold war era fallout shelters and subway stations being used in place of the shelters that would later be built. There's a lower death count in the Bronx, but he's going for property destruction here more then anything, especially as the capes don't have all that much knowledge as to how to minimize dammage. Eventually Behemoth is fought off, possibly being dunked in the Hudson or East River (if so that's probably where the High Priest shard got the idea for Leviathan).
Now the more important part is the after effects:
On Yonkers; the suburbs in that area just don't exist anymore, it's just a massive black pit north of the city. The exact demographic of Americans that Americans tend to mourn died, and the economy is hurt by the fact that the only way to access New York is either by water or through Jersey.
On the Bronx or Northern Manhattan the effects are far longer lasting. The best comparison I can think of is post leviathan Brockton Bay. Countless of the poorest in the city have lost their homes and business. Many who have nowhere to go end up homeless, and many who don't have work after the attack turn to crime. Villains who used to have territory in the effected areas move elsewhere in the city, likely ending up intruding on either previously safe areas, or areas that other villains have claimed, so there's a lot of gang wars in certain areas of the city. There's also a lot of places in the Bronx and/or Northern Manhattan that don't have things like water or power, and/or are effected by Behemoth's ash and radiation. There's probably certain neighborhoods that are considered uninhabitable that are resettled anyway that have residents die due to the environmental effects. And other neighborhoods that are abandoned due to the destruction but that fill with squatters.
Basically in conclusion Behemoth's effect on the Bronx is similar to that of Robert Moses.
