A Tombstone to the Past

While running around Manhattan’s empty streets, the idea came to me to document what I was witnessing or “people won’t believe this, they have to see it”. Familiar streets & avenues normally densely packed, empty. World famous tourist sites, typically overflowing with visitors, empty. Gone were the usual signs of life, and what replaced it were the sounds of birds, nature, wind, bicycles and the odd car and footstep. All combined, made for an oddly silent city. A tombstone to the past.

So I decided to film some of my runs to visually document what I was seeing. For like all things, this must end and when it does I hope it’s a document to how things were during this extraordinary time. We can look back, nod and say bravely we survived this. Below, is part 2 of my two part series. I hope it reflects how I felt on my runs, both the eerie sense of emptiness, the ethereal beauty of a city at rest and a sense of hope for the future.

Watch on YouTube here

As I settle into my pace, focus on my breathing, I allow the city to immerse me. The old sights and sounds have altered. Store muzak drafting out of air conditioned doors, no longer. The dull din of people talking, shouting, singing, silenced. Church Bells lay silent. Jackhammers and signs of construction halted. Honking horns replaced by the occasional bicycle bell. Instead, I’ve seen a lone sax player filling Times Square with the blues, the naked cowboy strumming his out of tune guitar to nobody in particular. I’ve seen illicit bars open their windows to the street serving beer to those in the know. I strangely keep bumping into Noah Emmerich (FBI’s Stan Beeman on The Americans), whos kids are the same age as my own. A true New Yorker, he stuck around.

And through these runs, it’s almost like looking back in time. Reversing our complicated lives, where it previously seemed we had no time for anything, to a more serene, contemplative place. The pace is slow, but I get to absorb and learn new things (more on that in another post).

But right about now, the fatigue has set in after nearly two and a half months. Combined with the warmer weather, has me itching to have this all go away.

But I remind myself, through the silenced buildings, New Yorker’s show a remarkable resilience to stay at home. Undeterred by other states early openings, New Yorkers know all too well what lurks outside. A virus that’s killed north of 28,000 people within a 2 month span – and infected hundreds of thousands. By now, we likely all know someone who has died from this. I know a lot more than I’d like to.

Despite all the noise and current headlines, the fact is nothing has really changed at all. If there’s no vaccine we can’t stop the spread of COVID-19 without social distancing. And therefore the risks are as they have always been – pretty dire.

But hope is a powerful drug, the hope for better days has never been stronger. As the weather improves we want to believe. Believe that the worst has past. Believe that there will be a vaccine miraculously developed by the fall (when nothing has ever been done previously in less than a year). I too want to believe. For without believe, we can’t leap forward and we can’t create our new world. That light at the end of the tunnel is the one we all must reach for. Let’s all believe and hope together.

You can watch Part 1 of my run here

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