The normality in our lives has been swallowed up by the Covid-19 pandemic.
There is no other way to look at it. No matter how full and hectic your life was before the pandemic, as a result of the stay-at-home restrictions, at least for those of us who have embraced the need to safeguard ourselves and our communities, life has shrunk to a few major concerns such as staying healthy both physically and mentally, and making sure we have the basic needs. Vacations have been cancelled, sports activities either curtailed or re-imagined, parties and get-togethers banished.
And yet it struck me that, as was the case for 9/11, once again we are living through a historic moment. These too are days and impressions that you will recount to your children and grandchildren. The difference is that while during 9/11 people found solace in congregating and sharing their shock, their grief and their anger, today, during the Coronavirus pandemic, we live in solitude.
As in some futuristic dystopic movie, New York City streets have been practically emptied of human beings. Even the light vehicular traffic looks eerie because so different from the frustrating jams we’re used to. Where are the throngs of people that on 365 days of the year jostle each other and fill the pavements? Or the noise and chaos of a workday?
Or the tourists waving from the lurid sight-seeing buses and clogging up all the attractions that NYC has to offer?
So, to see this phantasmagorical sight for myself, I decided to go on a photo safari through the city.
The upper East side and the Miracle Mile on Madison Ave; Saks 5th Ave and Rockefeller Center; the Queensboro Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge; Washington Square and Cadman Plaza, it was New York City as I had never seen it before.
This will be the face of the pandemic in NYC that I will remember in the future.
