The view from the Brooklyn Bridge is as dazzling as ever.
Everything is bathed in early morning sunlight. Everything looks as it should.
I am nearly alone on the bridge when I see Mohammed, a police officer I know from City Hall. His is the first face I’ve seen today, and we smile. “How are you doing?” he asks. “How is your family?”
When you live in New York City, you have 8.5 million neighbors. We are trying to stay inside our small apartments right now to save their lives, and the lives of those we love.
What is it like here in New York, now home to more than 7 percent of the world’s coronavirus cases?
Eerie. Anxious. The schools are closed. So are most stores. Subway ridership is down nearly 90 percent. Doctors warn that our hospitals are running out of ventilators and medical supplies and are on the brink of disaster.
Every day, we learn that someone else we know is sick. Tuesday, I read that Christell Cadet, a young paramedic I interviewed months ago, was fighting for her life. Wednesday, I found out that an older friend who is like a second father to me has been sick for days. Every day, we worry. We wonder if our neighbors can pay their rent. We go stir crazy. We pray. We wait for help from a federal government we fear may never come.
I started to walk. And walk, and walk some more. On Sunday, I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to have breakfast — socially distanced, and takeout, of course — with my friend.
On the Manhattan side of the bridge, I walked by an elementary school in the shadow of the Freedom Tower, and, as I have done many times before, read the small plaque on the side of the school. “On September 11 2001, our beloved and brave children witnessed the best and worst of humanity,” it reads. “We honor the heroic and compassionate principals, teachers and staff of P.S. 89 and I.S. 89 who brought them to safety, of both body and spirit.”
Blocks away, my friend Emma and I greeted each other at a breakfast place standing six feet apart, our arms outstretched in a kind of girlish air hug. I ordered a sesame bagel with scallion cream cheese. She ordered an egg and cheese. We are still New Yorkers, after all.
As the days wear on in New York, there is no longer just fear, but also steely resolve.
We are doing the best we can to help one another. In neighborhoods across the city, homemade signs have popped up on lampposts from New Yorkers offering to bring groceries to strangers who can’t leave the house in the coming weeks. “Call or text Susan,” one sign read in Brooklyn. “She will find someone who can help you.”
Others are raising money to help bartenders who are out of work, sending meals to hospital workers and ordering takeout to help keep their favorite sushi restaurant in business.
One surprise source of encouragement has been Andrew Cuomo, a respected, if rarely adored three-term governor. He calms our nerves with daily, clear-minded news conferences, always in his familiar Queens accent.
On Tuesday, he asked — no, begged — the federal government to send New York some 20,000 ventilators from the federal stockpile. “You pick the 26,000 people who are going to die because you only sent 400 ventilators,” he railed. Mr. Cuomo is far from perfect. But it sure is good to see someone competent in charge who gives a damn.
Over the weekend, I sat by the window reading Erik Larson’s new book, “The Splendid and the Vile,” about London during the Blitz.
On the eve of the siege, Prime Minister Winston Churchill addressed the nation. “It would be foolish to disguise the gravity of the hour,” he said. “It would be still more foolish to lose heart and courage.”
I thought about what it meant to be a New Yorker, to be part of a city that endured the Sept. 11 attacks and yet bursts with life, defiant, made alive by the energy of millions of people from every corner of the world.
For now, we are finding moments of light in unexpected places.
My childhood friends and I have been enjoying happy hour (or quarantini, if you like) over FaceTime. The last time we’ve seen this much of one another was in high school.
One morning last week, I played flashlight tag with the kids in the building across the street. When we tired of the game, we waved to one another, and I saw four little faces pressed up against the glass from yards away.
We go on long walks under the warming early spring sun, giving our neighbors lots of room as we pass them by. Rainbows dot the windows, offering a little cheer for a city that desperately needs some.
One day soon, we will all shove into the same subway car together, cursing under our breath, but crowding closer to make room for one more.
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