6 Feet Away or 6 Feet Under: NYC This Week
April 2, 2020 12:49 PM   Subscribe

This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- Brandon Blatcher



 
Thank you. These are good.

I can walk to Tompkins Square Park (the dog park is still bustling) and Union Square (only two or three sellers at yesterday's green market instead of dozens; I didn't stop to browse). I walked up through Grand Central (so extremely quiet, maybe ten people in the hall) to give blood (blood center was only allowing three donors into the room at a time, checking temperatures three times in the process) on Thursday.

Many of the sidewalks are still...in use. The runners are unmasked and oblivious. The silent flashing of ambulances is eerie. I'm not photographing anything when I take the daily walk, though I would like to start collecting pictures of the signs that stores and restaurants have posted in their windows. Most are filled with gratitude and hope. More are closed each day. Two of the four apartments on our floor are empty because the occupants left town. The nephrologist on the first floor sent a message through the building management asking for masks, any masks at all. The laundry place is open Monday/Wednesday/Friday now, instead of every day. MTA says they're running as many trains as they can with the crews available.

I'm considering buying a sewing machine from KMart to make masks, even though I don't have a fabric stash or even a spool of thread. I could never before justify giving the space to the hobby, but now it feels like a thing I must do, order cotton online or ask friends to send me theirs. All of my nurse friends here in the city are exhausted, working 12 hour shifts instead of 8, fewer days off, all have been exposed, none can take a day off unless they can't breathe. They're using the same masks for days. Someone posted a sign on 1st Ave the other day that they're selling a single N95 mask for $10, 10 for $80. A house in Brooklyn was raided by the FBI, with 5,000 boxes of masks removed after reports they were being sold at exorbitant prices. Maybe it was the same people.

My favorite bagel shop (Essa Bagel on 1st ave) is keeping itself going by increasing the number of Goldbelly orders they can take and ship.
posted by bilabial at 1:22 PM on April 2, 2020 [7 favorites]


Bilabial, I may have some spare fabric I can send you if you want it (it's, like, old bedsheets, but I'm happy to mail it to you in a week).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:00 PM on April 2, 2020


The photo of the Oculus reminds me of the days before any stores moved in, and instead of a shopping mall, it felt more like an opulent vomitorium for the PATH train. I liked it better that way.
posted by WCWedin at 3:38 PM on April 2, 2020 [4 favorites]


One thing about these kinds of pictures -- I've spent a lot of time traveling around New York in the off hours, either to work the early shift at a job, or to catch a train out of the city in the morning -- and few of these pictures really seem wondrous to me.

New York does get quiet regularly -- 3 am Tuesday in Times Square, Sunday at dawn along Broadway or in Grand Central. I've seen it as empty as this.
posted by Borborygmus at 5:15 PM on April 2, 2020 [1 favorite]


These photos are emphatically not wondrous.

They are terrifying. 3am quiet is normal here. Dawn quiet is normal here. 3pm quiet on a 50 degree day in March or April is not normal.

These photos aren’t about quiet. They are about the Spector of Death.
posted by bilabial at 5:33 PM on April 2, 2020 [5 favorites]


I've been self-isolating at home in South Brooklyn for a month now. Manhattan may as well be on the surface of the moon for me at this point...so it feels strange to look at these places that have become suddenly so distant.
posted by adso at 5:51 PM on April 2, 2020 [1 favorite]


I live in a small, old mill town (est. 1820) along the ancient Seneca Turnpike where I’ve been taking long nightly walks. It may not be Manhattan but the change here is still dramatic.

The complete absence of traffic noise has transformed the aural landscape of the village. Last night at the main intersection in the center of town, I could hear spring peepers and a dog barking in the distance. It was easy to imagine the town as it would have been in the mid-1800s, when water drove the mills, before the coming of trains. What would things have sounded like then? I’m guessing, not much different from now.
posted by kinnakeet at 7:08 AM on April 3, 2020


Not sure if this has appeared in one of the other coronavirus threads but, in the same vein, a videographer has put together a video of Las Vegas (The Strip as well as Fremont St./Downtown Vegas) in these apocalyptic times entitled CoronaVegas.
posted by mhum at 12:38 PM on April 3, 2020


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