That’s precisely what was happening before Gozer howled up and the walls started bleeding. Then we have the finale, but somewhere between the two films people start to think more like Walter Peck. And Winston sums up what happened from the people perspective ‘blew two storeys off a tower block and cover most of lower Manhattan in marshmallow’ because if people don’t fool themselves, the whole thing becomes a different type of story. We see it again and again Doctor Who as well, and now and then it’s lampshaded or dealt with.
Some viewers may find that unrealistic...for others it’s just an accepted piece of the fiction. It’s weird perhaps, but not stupid. Why are people still driving cars like ours, using phones like ours, when Tony Stark has invented limitless energy and new tech? Why would anyone stay in New York? It’s full of alien invasions and superheroes beating the shite out of the masonry. Aliens exist. Gods exist...people have seen Thor whooshing around, why isn’t there a resurgence in old Norse religions?
Why isn’t the world a massive American empire, they have all the superheroes?
By three movies in minimum the earth in the MCU should be very different to our own. By ten it should be an alien world to all intents.
It works because it keeps to its own rules within itself. Internal consistency, narrative logic, and the suspension of disbelief. The basic cornerstones of all non-literary fiction (and arguably even literary fiction has to follow it...it’s no good if Jane Eyre says ‘fuck this for a game of soldiers’ stabs everyone and goes off to be the antagonist in a Sherlock Holmes novel.)
GB2 is internally consistent with GB1. Vigo is consistent with a world in which Ivo Shandor builds temples in NYC, and huge chunks of parapsychology, spiritualism and theoretical science are all true and interrelated. This is largely because of how good Danny Akroyd is at this stuff when the bits between his teeth, and partially why the reboot didn’t do well...it copied the surface but didn’t get the framework underpinning it.