I’ve overheard touching sentiments on my rounds. In Times Square, a man on his cellphone pleaded, “Stay safe somehow, all right, baby?” In the Bronx, one man told another, “I got paid today. My buddy just got laid off.” And in Jackson Heights, on Roosevelt Avenue, a woman on the phone was clearly trying to convey what she felt were her more important worries to a loved one: “Alla en El Salvador le van a dar un balazo[There in El Salvador, he is going to get shot].”
I’ve watched people entering Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx reach for the door with disposable gloves on, winter gloves, with their sleeve, or just a tissue to avoid touching the door with their bare hands. We are all starting to notice, or perhaps just say things, we never did before. A woman on the subway told me that my nose was running and asked me to wipe it. As a passenger boarded a shuttle bus to Harlem, a young man exclaimed, “You f***ing stink and you get on the bus. Take a shower, there are lot of places where you can take a shower. Oh my god, you smell.”
“Stay home” or “shelter in place” rings hollow for large numbers of New Yorkers, especially those who make their living on the streets. Some panhandlers, for example, are becoming more aggressive. They are getting closer to people and more insistent. In Times Square, a man said, “Why are you looking at me like that? Why are you looking at me like that, nigger? I saw you looking at me.” I quickly left.
In Manhattan’s 96th Street Station, a seemingly insane homeless woman hollered and then laughed, while two policemen watched. She eventually got on a train with two large bags and left. One week ago, at Broadway Junction Station in Brooklyn, a man at the top of an escalator was screaming, “I am not moving for f***ing nobody.” Five police officers intervened, gently asking, “What do you need help with?” He responded by calling them “nigger clowns,” then walked away and boarded the subway to Manhattan.
Based on my experience, police seem reluctant to directly intervene in situations such as these. Rather than pursue a possible arrest, they are more inclined to move an individual along. Officers are not acting alone when approaching people, but are standing close to each other in groups of two or more, as if the contagion were only being spread by civilians, not from their fellow officers.
On Willis Avenue in the Bronx, I hear one man tell another, “This is a serious time. The tourists are gone, the restaurants are closed, the bodegas are open until 8:00 pm, and this guy is president. The violence is coming.” Similarly, on Fulton Street in Brooklyn, an elderly man tells me, “The virus is spreading, and the attitude is growing.”
On my way home one afternoon, I noticed the subway stations screens flashing the words “Solidarity, Respect, Kindness” and a 2020 census advertisement telling us that “We all get to shape our future.” A subway musician reassures riders, “Don’t worry, like all storms, this will blow over.” As spring deepens, the virus is becoming more deadly—especially in the neighborhoods where New York’s already most vulnerable populations live.
