Amongst the most coveted things in the world right now, besides toilet paper and Tylenol, are the antibodies to the SARS-COV2 virus. So when my doctor said the test was available, I jumped at the chance to get it.
Almost two months ago I came down with…something. It was the strangest set of symptoms I’d ever experienced and believe me, I know symptoms. If I enumerated the symptoms of this..something…it would sound like the flu. The problem is that whatever that was in March didn’t attack like the flu. The difference between the flu and whatever that was is the difference between being punched hard and being punched for twelve rounds by Manny Pacquiao. And I had the mild version of that…something. What the hell was the severe version?
Of course, my doctor and the two PAs I spoke to during my illness presumed it was covid-19. What else could it be? But I had to be sure. So I went to get the test.
The problem was that I could only get the test in my doctor’s office. I live uptown. My doctor’s office is downtown, more than five miles away. How was I supposed to get down there? Even he wasn’t in the office. He was conducting all his sessions remotely for safety reasons. “Just put on a mask and gloves and take the subway,” he said. “You’ll be fine.”
Ever since I was a child, I’ve loved the subway. It represented the greatness of New York for me. It granted me freedom of movement. It took me everywhere I wanted to go. Everybody rode it. It equalized all members of society because rich or poor, you had to take the subway. And if you rode it late enough, you would have stories to tell.
Today, of course, the subway is not running 24 hours a day. For the first time in the 115 year history of the subway the City That Never Sleeps lets its subway rest from 1AM to 5AM, just so it can be disinfected. I hadn’t ridden the subway, myself, in two months, having been sheltered in place and traveling, at most, a half mile away from my apartment. That’s the longest I’ve gone without riding it in my history. And my history includes periods of extended convalescence and time away.
Okay, I was going to ride the subway all the way down and then back all the way up, but I wanted to see what my City looked like after two months of lockdown. I decided to ride the bus down to Washington Square Park.
The first surprise was that I couldn’t even get on the bus. Not at first. They don’t let you go in the normal way—through the front door— nowadays. This puts the driver at risk. The door doesn’t even open. You have to get on through the back door. And since there is nowhere to swipe your Metrocard in the back, bus rides are effectively free in New York City right now.
Not that many people are taking advantage of that discount. There was only one other person on the bus when I got on at noon. The chains and “Stay home” sign separated us from the driver.
For the four mile ride from uptown to downtown, there were—at most—three people on the bus at any one time, including me. Looking out on the street as we went down, there was, at most, one person on the block, maybe two. This is going down Fifth Avenue on a Thursday afternoon. The steps of the Met should have been teeming with tourists and other visitors. The sidewalks in front of some of the most expensive stores on earth should have had gawkers and window shoppers. There should have been traffic. None of the above were present.
The block where you find the Washington Square Arch is the same block where Will Smith’s character, Robert Neville, lived in the movie I Am Legend. In the movie Robert Neville is a military scientist and is the only known survivor of a pandemic that wiped out most of the world’s population and then turned the remaining people into hostile mutants. I couldn’t help thinking about that movie as I got off the bus.
But it was a beautiful spring day. The blue sky was littered with a few wispy clouds. There were a handful of people walking around. It was not unlike being in Europe on a Sunday, maybe Paris or Barcelona, when there are fewer people on the street because they are with their families. Except the I wasn’t in Europe and I have never seen any part of New York City like this, not even after we were attacked on 9/11. Walking around the City in the middle of pandemic made me feel like a visitor, a foreigner, a stranger—even though this was my own city, the city I’ve known since I was a child.
I found more people in the middle of the Park, sunning themselves, reading, talking with a friend, crashing a skateboard against the base of a statue. Which is to say that, except for the masks, it was hard to tell the difference between pre- and post-pause. There were nearly as many people as I would expect to find on any spring weekday and the social distancing was barely in evidence. I’m not sure what was more disturbing: the empty streets or the packed Park. Not that I don’t understand the need to bathe in the sun and be with people at a time like this. I was, after all, meandering, myself.
On the way to the subway I passed Broadway and I stood right in the middle of the Avenue, north and south. Not many souls nor many moving machines.
It was the subway I really wanted to see. I’d heard stories of what was now happening on them, some of them quite unsavory. What I found was, again, nothing. An empty and clean car. This is something I’ve never seen. Even at 3AM you would find someone on the train, especially in the Village. Of course, nowadays, the train isn’t even running at 3AM.
This is Zucotti Park, close to my final destination. At 1PM on a sunny cool spring day, you would expect to see hundreds of people filling the tables and walking around, taking their lunch. If you squint, you will see the one person I found. Everybody else is working from home. If they are lucky enough to be working.
The actual Wall Street use to be the beating heart of global capitalism. The financial institutions left decades ago save for a handful but it is still often crowded. Except for now, for the last few months and for the foreseeable future.
Finally, the Trinity Church, the tallest structure in New York for much of its early history. Behind it, One World Trade Center, the tallest structure in New York today. In this photographic juxtaposition one striking commonality emerges, between the modern and ancient: both structures are likely empty of people, save for the skeleton staff keeping the structures healthy as they patiently wait for people to return.
For my return home, I took the train all the way up. I didn’t take any pictures because this time, there were more people and I thought it would have been rude. Too bad, this was the interesting part of the journey and, in many ways, the most disturbing.
When I say there more people, I don’t mean the trains were crowded. Instead of one person, maybe there were ten. This still left ample room for social distancing. No one was within six feet of me.
I had heard that the homeless people were running rampant and creating havoc. I didn’t see that. I did see that there were more homeless people on the trains. Or it could have been that number of homeless people was the same but they were far more noticeable because the number of everyone else had fallen.
As for everyone else, well, that was the most tragic part of my day’s journey. In my youthful eyes the subway had been the great equalizer. Rich or poor, you had to ride it if you lived in New York. That is not true today. The vast majority of the people on the train were clearly the people who had no choice but to ride in order to make a living. No option to work remotely for them. That most of the people I saw were representatives of historically disenfranchised people made the sight more problematic. And by “most”, I mean that I only counted one person who was not said member.
The subway historically has blurred class distinctions. It is emphasizing them today to the point of heartbreak. Of course, you don’t need to ride the subway to see that emphasis. Just go to your supermarket. Take a good look at who is risking their lives for the sake of your dinner.
At the end of the I Am Legend Robert Neville develops a cure for the virus but at the cost of his life. He develops the cure by experimenting on one of the mutants but as he finishes, the other mutants attack his facility in order to rescue the one held in captivity for experimentation. Dr. Neville draws a vial of the mutant’s blood, hands it a young woman he had been protecting and then enables her escape by trapping himself with the attacking mutants and setting off grenade, killing the mutants and himself. Robert Neville wins the Manichean struggle by heroically sacrificing his life.
Until recently I didn’t know there was a Director’s Cut with a different ending. In this ending, no one dies. As the mutants attack Neville realizes that the reason the mutants are attacking is because they being led by the male partner of Neville’s female captive. A husband was simply trying to rescue his wife. From the mutants’ point of view, Neville is the monster, kidnapping and experimenting on their people. Neville realizes this and decides to return his captive, seeing tears stream down the eyes of the leader as his partner is returned. Neville and the mutants leave each other in peace in the end.
In this fearful time of crisis, of division and accusation, of sealed borders and unfounded conspiracy theories and of demonization of the Other, I prefer the second ending. I hope and pray that it is the second ending that we choose. I hope the vibrant City that I love doesn’t return. I hope the City that takes its place—the one we will all return to soon enough—is even more vibrant but also more equitable. I hope it is a City of Dreams for all. That kind of city doesn’t have to remain a dream. We can choose to make it happen. All we have to do is accept the basic responsibility that all human beings have to other human beings—whether we think they are different from us or not. This is my hope for how we emerge from this pandemic. I don’t want to return to the way things were. I want to be better.
When I Am Legend was released, of course, the studio decided to go with the first ending, the one that ended in death and destruction. That was the option they thought would generate more money for the film. I hope we don’t make the same choice.