Lockdown
Pedestrians pass through a deserted Tribeca in New York City.
COVID-19 seemed to hit New York City overnight. It turned out the virus had been there since December, but people's lives and lifestyles didn't come to a screeching halt until the third week of March. Within a matter of days stores closed across the city, companies laid off employees indefinitely, and those remaining suddenly had to work from home. The intense fear and confusion that followed coupled with an overwhelming lack of leadership to transform the city into a bizarre alternate reality where everyone was suspicious and no one knew exactly what to do about it.
Accompanying the empty streets and boarded-up storefronts were a handful of New Yorkers wandering the city like recently deceased ghosts. Some traveled to work, others walked their dogs, and some paced anxiously down once-crowded blocks. Regardless of where we all stood in our day-to-day lives, those of us who braved the outdoors had one thing in common: we were all trying to make sense of this strange new world.
The ancient Greeks used the word acedia to describe a listlessness towards life borne out of confinement. As the months have worn on and the virus has spread across the entire country; as police shootings, protests, and riots have overtaken our vision field; and as the road to the presidential election continues to evoke the worst parts of humanity it's hard not to feel acedia.
COVID-19 may have hit New York overnight, but its effects have spiraled much farther out than anyone could have imagined so many months ago. All of us alive right now, we're ghosts, and when this is all over - one or two or five years down the line - there's no telling how far we'll have wandered in its wake.
Accompanying the empty streets and boarded-up storefronts were a handful of New Yorkers wandering the city like recently deceased ghosts. Some traveled to work, others walked their dogs, and some paced anxiously down once-crowded blocks. Regardless of where we all stood in our day-to-day lives, those of us who braved the outdoors had one thing in common: we were all trying to make sense of this strange new world.
The ancient Greeks used the word acedia to describe a listlessness towards life borne out of confinement. As the months have worn on and the virus has spread across the entire country; as police shootings, protests, and riots have overtaken our vision field; and as the road to the presidential election continues to evoke the worst parts of humanity it's hard not to feel acedia.
COVID-19 may have hit New York overnight, but its effects have spiraled much farther out than anyone could have imagined so many months ago. All of us alive right now, we're ghosts, and when this is all over - one or two or five years down the line - there's no telling how far we'll have wandered in its wake.
Once the villain of the COVID-19 story, China and its 4,500 deaths now pale in comparison to the U.S.'s 175,000+.
Not out of the woods yet: sky-scraping office buildings, the calling cards of U.S. cities, became virtually barren overnight.
Two new occurrences in 2020: the prevalence of social distancing notices and the prevalence of Americans ignoring them.
The necessity for face masks in public outdoor space is apparently still up for debate.
The COVID-19 virus, invisible to the naked eye and underestimated by millions of Americans, continues its crusade across the country.
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Hunger Can Be Hard To Recognize: the inability of federal, state, and local governments to protect many of their citizens has further highlighted the already-prominent disparities between low-income communities and their (even slightly) wealthier neighbors.
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The 14th Street/8th Avenue subway station in NYC. Normally this stop is bustling with people transferring back and forth from the crosstown L to the north- and southbound A-C-E trains.
Following the spread of COVID-19 many NYC jails released homeless and addicts back onto the streets. With very few New Yorkers riding the subways during the early months of the pandemic, this man sleeps soundly in front of a once-popular station entrance.
A man takes a break while loading moving trucks with creates of frozen food. Graffiti behind him reads "curb your ego".
NYPD and FDNY respond to a public disturbance call in Washington Square Park, Manhattan.
A lone jogger runs through Central Park.
Distractions recede into the background as we attempt to process an abundance of free time and reevaluate life values and goals.
Once-inconspicuous activities like taking the baby for a stroll now carry heightened fears and tensions.
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An elderly woman walks groceries back to her home despite being at significantly higher risk of contracting the virus.
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Coronavirus and political unrest overlap in Bushwick, Brooklyn and beyond.
Graffiti in New York has increased exponentially as more artists paint and less city services employees paint over them.
Now more than ever life is a barrage of loudly competing, conflicting, and confusing admonitions.
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The views outside our windows have become a unifying factor for humans all over the world.
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For many - trapped in our homes, stuck with our loved ones, alone and together - life has become a gilded cage.
Despite strict travel restrictions some people - required by their jobs or drawn to significantly reduced airfare - still travel.