Maria Puente

USA TODAY

She may have been the loser but Hillary Clinton is still getting the ovations, especially in her town, New York.

After a devastating loss, Clinton is recovering her New York state of mind with the help of the Big Apple's fashion, entertainment and theater crowds, who always supported her and now have embraced her back into the fold.

It turns out that many New Yorkers — loud, opinionated, even obnoxious on occasion — have a soft spot for the ex-first lady, ex-senator, ex-secretary of state, ex-Democratic presidential nominee who has become one of them, even more so than native-born Donald Trump. He couldn't even win his childhood district in Queens (she got 85% of the vote; he got less than 14%).

Thus, it was Clinton who got the crowd on its feet Thursday when she appeared at Grand Central Terminal for a U.S. Postal Service ceremony unveiling a collection of 11 stamps featuring the late Oscar de la Renta and his designs — long favored by Clinton (and Ivanka Trump during her father's inaugural festivities).

Anderson Cooper was the emcee. Vogue's fashion doyenne Anna Wintour was there. Former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, a bigger billionaire than Trump, was there. But it was Clinton who stirred with a rousing paean to de la Renta's fashion savvy and his immigrant roots in the Dominican Republic. The pointed jab at the anti-immigration policies of the man who beat her was not lost on her audience.

"What a fitting person to be chosen by our Postal Service, mentioned, by the way, in the Constitution, something we should all read and re-read in today’s times, and its choice of this immigrant, who did so much for our country, his country," she said. "And let there be many, many more immigrants with the love of America that Oscar de la Renta exemplified every single day.”

Then there was her fun dinner with her SNL doppelganger, Kate McKinnon, at Orso Wednesday night, where much laughter was heard emanating from the table, according to The New York Post (not a fan), which tweeted a picture that was then retweeted.

And don't forget the repeated ovations when she takes her seat in an audience before showtime on Broadway; the latest roar of cheers was on Wednesday night after the McKinnon dinner, when she turned up for the musical Sunset Boulevard at the Palace Theater, a moment documented by scores of tweets and selfies.

And it wasn't the only one. With more time for relaxing and entertainment these days, Clinton has been taking in multiple shows in New York, according to Playbill.

On Feb. 1, when she and husband Bill Clinton attended In Transit, they started chanting her name.

Earlier, on Jan. 8, when she and her husband and daughter Chelsea Clinton, showed up for the final performance of the Broadway revival The Color Purple, she got several ovations from the sold-out audience, and another round of applause when she was acknowledged by the cast after the show, according to the New York Times.

Hillary Clinton receives standing ovation at ‘The Color Purple’ on Broadway

There is even talk, drummed up by the likes of the New York Post and conservative news sites such as Rightwingnews.com (definitely not fans), that Clinton would run for mayor of New York this year, challenging Democrat incumbent Bill de Blasio and possibly becoming the first female mayor of the city she won with nearly 80% of its presidential vote.

So far, the scoffing about this exceeds the cheering. "Unlikely," concludes Errol Louis, host of Inside City Hall on NY1, in an essay on CNN. "It's safe to assume that nobody in her right mind — certainly nobody as familiar with the workings of government and politics as Clinton — would lightly take on the headaches of the nation's largest city for such nakedly political reasons."

And if she did run, one thing is likely: The ovations would stop.