Dispatch from the Epicenter
by Nina Berman
USA, New York, 14 March, 2020, As New York City woke up to the realities of the pandemic, I came upon a dead rat on the sidewalk and it reminded me of Albert Camus The Plague, it was a war- ning or a sign of the death to come.
A rat’s corpse lies perfectly centered on an open sidewalk reminding me that Albert Camus’s 1947 novel The Plague (La Peste) has become popular af- ter decades of obscurity. As I walk through my neighborhood, I’m attuned to everyday things which take on new meaning; the virus never far from my thoughts. I see boys playing soccer and wonder will the field still be open tomorrow. It was shut two days later.
USA, New York, 01 April, 2020. A field hospital is built in Central Park to handle the overflow of patients from nearby Mt. Sinai Hospital. The Corona Virus has strained the NYC health care system with not enough beds, workers, or ventilators to handle the thousands of cases.
USA, New York, 15 March, 2020. Boys play soccer on a field in Riverside Park jsut before the order was given to stop all group play to try to prevent the Corona VIrus from spreading.
At Columbia University where I teach, thousands of students who would have graduated were sent home packing, their fates uncertain. Some of them, who had already been given their caps and gowns for commencement, assembled for pictures. Performing graduation was better than not having it at all.
USA, New York, 15 March, 2020. Universites around the USA including Columbia University shut their doors and ordered their students to leave housing due to the Corona Virus. Some of them, realizing that they would not have a graduation ceremony, took their already orddred caps and gowns and performed graduation.
I venture downtown at night to the financial district. It’s silent and ghostly, a homeless man wrapped in a white sheet, a lone jogger. Many of the weal-thy have fled choosing to ride out the pandemic elsewhere. The emptiness feels like the weeks after September 11, but instead of ash in the air, I smell Purell on my hands.
New Yorkers live on top of each other. In Manhattan we’re stacked 72,000 people per square mile. We like it that way. Social distancing is for thesuburbs. But the virus has put us all in our little cages; alienated, anxious, our eyes stuck in our TVs and screens.
USA, New York City, 20 March 2020, A man wrapped in a sheet wanders through the financial district in front of the New York Stock Exchange during the New York City shut down to halt the spread of the Corona Virus.
USA, New York City, 17 March 2020, My television screen reflected in the window of my apartment looking out at the water towers on the buildings of NYC. Millions of people are shut in as a result of the corona virus.
Yesterday the paramedics arrived in my building and took an old woman from the 12th floor to the hospital. Rumors and whispers, was it Covid? How could it not be? What elevator was she taken down in? Was it disinfected? Where is her family? Is she intubated?
My mind drifts back to the dark days of the 1980’s AIDS crisis and I feel intense emotional grief. That virus ripped the heart out of New York’s creative community. What will this virus do?
A few weeks in and I know two very sick people and two dead people.
Amid the wail of ambulance sirens, birds sing, intent on ushering in the promise of spring. The sound is exquisite and chilling, a perfect harmony of lifeand death.
USA, New York City, 23 April, 2020, Amy, 38, sits on the sidewalk on 5th Avenue surrounded by closed luxury and big brand stores, panhandling for change. She's been homeless 3 years, was once a manager of a delicatessen in New Jersey. Lost her job, then her mom's home because she couldn't pay the mortage. Lived in her car for a while. She said the homeless hotels normally charge $50 a night, but during the pandemic had discounted it to $20, but it takes her 3 days to get that given the very few people on the street.
USA, New York City, 03 April, 2020, Nurses and Doctors from Mt Sinai Hospital and other hospitals in New York City hold a protest about the poor and dangerous working conditions and lack of protective gear for front line workers treating COVID 19 patients. They accuse the hospitals of prioritizing profits over their people. They are holding pictures of their colleagues who died of Covid19.
USA, New York, 04 April 2020, Health care workers including nurses and paramedics respond to the 7pm clap by firefighters and New Yorkers to honor health care workers, NYU Langone Hospital.
USA, New York, 05 April 2020, All businesses and religious institutions are shut down to stop the spread of the Corona Virus. Blue tape indicates the church is closed
At 5pm each day, the New York City Department of Health releases the numbers. As of April 7, 3,544 are confirmed dead from Covid19 but that doesn’t include the approximately 200 people dying at home each day who never got tested. The body count is staggering for a city of 8 million people. Meanwhile, nurses and doctors don’t have the equipment they need. The front line is collapsing laying bare decades of profiteering, corruption andnegligence.
USA, New York, 04 Apri 2020, Refrigerated trucks serving as mobile morgues to hold the bodies of those who died from Covid 19 are lined up at NYU Langone hospital in Manhattan.
In Central Park, dozens of white medical tents house the patient overflow from nearby Mt. Sinai hospital. Refrigerated “whisper” trucks, or mobile mor-gues, are parked outside of every hospital. Where to put all the bodies is becoming a logistical problem. This morning the governor announced grimly,that there may be no other choice but to turn the city parks into temporary grave yards.
The sirens weep and wail.
USA, New York City, 01 May 2020, A grave digger at work amid the smoke from the crematorium at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY. Deaths from Covid19 has put unprecedented strain on New York City's funeral services with bodies piling up as deaths reached as high as 800 per day.