It’s dark in New York. This is one of the biggest changes Alexander Görlach has noticed since the coronavirus started raging in the city. “The lights in the shops and office buildings in Manhattan are off,” says Görlach, who has lived in New York as a Carnegie Fellow since July 2018 and works, among other things, as a columnist for DW. “The city that never sleeps is already asleep.”
New York City and the surrounding state was hit hardest in the US. The curfew has been in place for two weeks and more and more hospitals in the city are reporting a shortage of protective clothing, masks, ventilators – actually everything.
But no corona case in the building
When US President Donald Trump indicated at a press conference on Sunday that he found it suspicious that New York hospitals were using so many face masks, there was an outcry on social media. After all, doctors not only have to treat the exponentially increasing corona cases, but also continue to maintain “normal” operations.
US President Donald Trump is not doing well in the Corona crisis
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“On Sunday there was an ambulance in front of our house,” says Görlach, who lives with his partner in an apartment building in the Long Island City district of Queens. “We all pressed our noses against the glass and were worried. But you have to remember that there are other diseases. Our building management later informed the residents that it was not a case of corona Has.”
The traffic is standing still
Queens is the New York borough hardest hit by the coronavirus outbreak, ahead of Brooklyn. Queens reported 14,966 cases of the coronavirus as of Wednesday, more than double Manhattan, which had 6,960 on Wednesday.
Typically, large numbers of people commute each morning from Queens to Manhattan via the East River, where rents are too high for average earners. But normality no longer exists under the corona virus. “I counted the other day: it was 17 seconds before I saw the first car crossing the Queensboro Bridge into town [nach Manhattan] drove,” says Görlach. Normally, there are more cars on the bridge than you can count with the naked eye.
Far fewer cars drive across the Queensboro Bridge than usual
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If you can somehow avoid it, you won’t leave the house anymore. As a result, Görlach suddenly sees many New York landmarks in his neighborhood. “A lot of the famous yellow cabs are now parked here in Queens. They were already endangered by Uber and Lyft. And now nobody drives anymore.”
At John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens, where passengers normally have to wait for a taxi, drivers now wait six hours or more before they can transfer a traveler from the airport into the city, reports the New York Times.
The coronavirus has taken hold of New York
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“Don’t touch anything”
Görlach is also on the road a lot less than it used to be. Some of his lectures have been postponed, others are taking place online. He can get some fresh air on his balcony. After all, it’s always “quite a nice tear” when he leaves the house. “Spontaneously walking out the door is not,” says the Carnegie Fellow. “Hand sanitizer, then latex gloves and face mask. Then get in the elevator like a battle ninja – don’t touch anything. And if you want to ride one of the rental bikes here, you have to disinfect everything first.”
Nobody in New York dares to leave the house without a face mask
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It’s been like this for two weeks – and nothing will probably change in the next four, or maybe even eight weeks. But what does a month or two of social distancing do to people? “I do believe that it will gnaw at us quite a bit,” said Görlach. “It’s good not to be alone at this time. But New York is known as the city of singles.” And such isolation is definitely hard for them.
After all, the subway continues to run and the garbage is also picked up according to plan. Signs that even in the crisis things are still going their usual way. “It’s also important for public order,” Görlach believes. So the citizens of the metropolis remain halfway relaxed. The city prides itself on always bouncing back after hard hits like Hurricane Sandy or the nightmare of 9/11. Görlach also knows about this strength: “New Yorkers can do it.”
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Alexander Görlach has lived in New York since July 2018. The PhD linguist and theologian is a Senior Fellow of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and a Senior Research Associate at the University of Cambridge in the Department of Religion and International Studies.
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