Dr. Alexander Goerlach, Senior Fellow, Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
Last Sunday, after three weeks in quarantine, I got on my bicycle and rode from Long Island City to Manhattan over the Queensboro Bridge. Like many other people, I cross the bridge daily in normal times. On the Long Island City side of the river, an oversize Pepsi sign marks the site of recent redevelopment projects. Amazon had plans to move here, bringing 250,000 jobs with it. Plans that failed when politics wouldn’t play along: Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez wasn’t eager to see Amazon in the area, as in her view the company was shirking its duty to pay taxes, and its new headquarters would gentrify the area beyond all recognition.
The last stop before Manhattan is Queensboro Plaza Station on the corner opposite the United Nations building. When I don’t bicycle, I ride one of the subway lines that run from here to Manhattan: the W Broadway Local, the N Broadway Express or the 7 Flushing Local. The platforms are usually packed, and not only at rush hour.
But anyone who still has to take the subway at this point belongs to the true losers of this crisis. The only people who leave the house these days are those who absolutely must. Those who can afford it started their fourth week working out of their home office on April 6. Certainly our lives, my life, has also been curtailed. But as long as I stay home and keep the rules when I go out, I can focus on staying healthy. A privilege not enjoyed by those who still have to go to work, and who depend on public transportation to get there.
The New York Times has created a map showing which of they city’s hospitals have been hardest hit. They’re located above all in those areas of Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx where immigrants and people with low incomes live. Those communities are home to people who need every dollar they can get, who aren’t networked beyond their close-knit circles and who possibly didn’t catch the news about the pandemic in time. One day the Covid-19 crisis will be used to study ways to inform entire populations about a rapidly spreading pandemic.
In New York City as in the USA generally, public services on a European level are largely unknown. The word “public” strikes many people as code for “socialist.” In no other western democracy are people who lack financial means left behind as badly as in the USA. Where that ultimately leads can be found in words recently written by a friend, a doctor in Brooklyn who’s now treating Covid-19 cases around the clock: Many of the nurses and doctors are themselves sick, there aren’t enough supplies, patients are left to fend for themselves. “First they go blue, and then they die – alone,” his report concludes. Horrific. A lump in the throat. It is so bitter.
There are still several people waiting on the platform at Queensboro Plaza Station today. From the street, I can only see their heads. Their numbers are much reduced, but still much higher than it should be. On my disinfected bicycle, protected by gloves and a face mask, I feel many times safer and ready to cross to Manhattan. City Bike provides rental bicycles to the entire city. The app comes with a map of the city showing where you can find a bike. It’s as much an indicator of the disparity between rich and poor in the city as the map of Covid-19 infections: in poor neighborhoods, there are more infections, but no bicycles for rent.
When I arrive in Midtown, there’s almost no one on the street. All stores, all restaurants are closed. If you want to understand why nearly ten million Americans filed for unemployment in just two weeks, you’ll find a visceral example here: shoe shiners, coffee shops, hair salons, department stores, offices, an entire ecosystem stuck on pause. Countless businesses, restaurants and shops have already filed for bankruptcy. Times Square is limp and lifeless. At night, when the lights are – it seems almost inconceivable – switched off, the city must feel like a ghost town. Closed for business.
Park Avenue, 5th Avenue: not a soul on the street. Occasionally there are vehicles, or people who have come into the city from Queens, Brooklyn or the Bronx to deliver food by electric bicycle. Without people, cars, trucks, noise and exhaust, Manhattan seems almost peaceful. At this moment, people in the city are dropping like flies from Covid-19. Governor Cuomo and Donald Trump have both announced that Holy Week will claim many more lives.
Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on 5th Avenue is also closed. Sunday is Easter, the holiest day in Christendom. Many churches have switched to broadcasting worship services online. For Easter, some are contemplating holding open-air services, of course with the required separation between the faithful. And to cope with the quarantine and pandemic, many of my friends tell me they’ve turned to meditation. There’s demand for meaning, especially in times of crisis. It sounds like how my grandparents described the devastation of World War II – “hardship teaches you to pray.”
When I think of those who have already died and those who will follow this Easter week, I can’t help but think of Jesus suffering and dying alone. For those now awaiting an awful death in the hospitals of New York or Bergamo or wherever they may be, I hope the message of Easter is true and that they will be allowed a glimpse of light after their misery and the anguish of death.
The living still can’t comprehend the blank spaces in their lives that the dead will leave behind: The grim estimates for the USA contemplate 240,000 deaths. That would be more than the number of American soldiers who fell in Korea and Vietnam combined. How should the victims of pandemic be remembered? How can a nation or a world community process such a loss? On a personal level, everyone knows someone who’s fallen ill, or we know someone who knows someone who’s sick. How horrible it must be to lose a loved one the way my doctor friend described.
The bicycle ride, permitted as an athletic activity according to New York’s rules, was without question important for the health of my body. But even more so for the soul and spirit as an act of self-affirmation: a victory sign on the legendary Brooklyn Bridge. As if to say: You, virus, we’re still here, you won’t get us!
Alexander Goerlach is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York.
