What it’s like watching New York come together during lockdown

"Своим успехом я обязана тому, что никогда не оправдывалась и не принимала оправданий от других." Флоренс Найтингейл

When anyone from anywhere else asks me how lockdown is going, I half-jokingly reply that New York apartments were not built for quarantine. Everyone gets the punchline. But it is really tough to stay inside a shoe box all day.

What its like watching New York come together during lockdown

Wall Street and New York Stock Exchange in Downtown Manhattan, New York City

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We all accept these shoe boxes because New York City is the trade-off for space. Not just for the restaurants and cafés and theatres that are all closed indefinitely right now, but the scenes that unfold like vignettes on any city block: the corners in Nolita packed with people looking cooler than you ever could. The raucous day drinkers spilling out of boutique bars on the Lower East Side. The basketballers playing games of pick-up near West 4th Street. Italian old-timers sipping espressos in deepest Brooklyn. This is the New York we all live here for and the one that has been shut down. All that remains on those blocks are the backdrops, waiting for the New Yorkers to bring them back to life.

What its like watching New York come together during lockdown

The Oculus shopping center and PATH train station in the World Trade Center stand totally empty during the coronavirus epidemic

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We can’t see this New York right now. But – but! – tiny vignettes are shaping up on community blocks across the five boroughs as lockdown enters week five. From my windows three stories up in Carroll Gardens, a brownstone section of south Brooklyn that was traditionally a blue-collar Italian stronghold, the stoops are once again spots for socialising. Neighbours stand or sit on the steps outside their front doors and shoot the breeze with those doing the same around them. Often there’s wine. Sometimes, a pizza gets handed over by a delivery guy in a mask and gloves. It’s simple and sweet and it makes me feel just a little uplifted each time I notice this little revived art of community conversation. My landlady has lived here for the past four of her seven decades, and said it reminded her of how things were when she first moved in. Days before she told me this, she had set up a small blue table and chairs in the courtyard leading to her front door, so that I could have a place to spend time outside during lockdown. A total New York move. New Yorkers are considerate, helpful and always wanting to make hardship easier if possible.

What its like watching New York come together during lockdown

A police officer crosses the street in a nearly empty Times Square

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We have seen that on a larger scale during quarantine. Almost immediately, GoFundMes were set up by locals for restaurants and their staff who had been forced out of a job, raising thousands of donations within weeks. The city’s Four Seasons was the first luxury hotel in the country to turn over its rooms to frontline healthcare workers so that they had a comfortable place to rest between shifts without the risk of infecting their families (other big names including Claridge’s in London have since done the same). Top bistros across town are pitching in to address the growing demand for free food as unemployment mounts, such as NoHo’s Fish Cheeks, which is donating its Thai dishes to the nearby Bowery Mission. Chef Daniel Humm reopened his three-Michelin-starred Eleven Madison Park as a commissary kitchen for those in danger of going hungry.

What its like watching New York come together during lockdown

Forty Second Street stands mostly empty as as much of the city is void of cars and pedestrians over fears of spreading the coronavirus

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And then, of course, there are the little things we are all doing. During short walks to get some fresh air, neighbours hop from street to kerb to keep respectful distances. When someone does this for me, I return the courtesy with a smile, though I always forget that a smile is undetectable beneath my face mask; it just looks like I’m staring. Each night at 7pm, joining citizens in lockdown cities around the world, we take to our windows to applaud healthcare workers. People beat pots and pans. I often hear a whoop-whoop cheer, like the one Arsenio Hall made famous.

What its like watching New York come together during lockdown

A view inside Grand Central Terminal during the coronavirus pandemic

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One night, a lady in an apartment across the street lingered after the clapping fizzled. She sang ‘All By Myself’ by Céline Dion. She had a beautiful voice. I observed how others, like myself, remained at their windows to listen. Maybe it was just a show, a performance to provide a few additional minutes of engagement between all of us stuck inside our shoe boxes. But I also detected a touch of New York humour in the whole thing. To me, she was sending a message. Yes, this sucks. But let’s not get too dramatic. And remember that, all things considered, having to be cooped up in an apartment in the best city in the world for a bit so that everything can heal is a small ask in the long run.

A Coast Guard helicopter flies over the USNS Comfort hospital ship as it sails in the Hudson River in front of the skyline of lower Manhattan after arriving in New York City on March 30

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