What Is New York Without New Yorkers?
I needed to get out of the house this week but the park was dangerously crowded. So I started walking south and ended up at Rockefeller Center, which is usually one of the busiest intersections in the country. Today it was so deserted that I could walk down the middle of Fifth Avenue; it was silent but for the rushing water coming from the manicured fountains.
I’ve lived in New York City for my entire life and have always wished that the crowds of tourists would go away and leave us in peace, but today I wished someone would stop me on a corner and ask for directions to the subway or for a restaurant recommendation. I wished that I could go to the Metropolitan Museum and visit my favorite paintings and the security guards who have worked there since I was a child. I wished I could go to Bemelmans to drink Manhattans with my friends and listen to the pianist sing Tea for Two. And I wished I could squeeze onto a bar stool at J.G. Melon, order a burger, and complain to the bartenders about my grievances with New York.
But as I walked down Fifth Avenue, dodging the few buses that were driving South, I realized that our conversation would be different after this. Because after walking for miles and seeing nothing but wide avenues empty of cars and trucks, sidewalks bereft of crowds, dark stores cleared out of inventory, and shuttered restaurants, I felt entirely unnerved.
I wasn’t prepared to feel so disconcerted; ordinarily, I love cities the most when they are quiet. Whenever I travel I wake up early and get out with the sun, take a long walk and watch the city wake up. I have cherished memories of walking across the empty medieval bridges of Strasbourg; of the intoxicating smell of fresh baguettes and croissants as they were delivered to dark cafés in Paris; of visiting an empty church in Portofino at the height of the summer tourist, the only person there the priest who unlocked the doors because everyone else was still asleep.
I love the romance of these morning walks in no small part because I can never experience that kind of solitude in New York City. No matter what time I wake up (or go to sleep, for that matter), the city is alive and buzzing. The city that never sleeps conjures up images of nightlife so vibrant it doesn't cease, but New York is full of morning people too. Even if I leave my house before sunrise, I am still surrounded by my neighbors walking their dogs or heading to yoga classes, I am blinded by the lights of pharmacies and diners that are open 24 hours a day, and the symphony of screeching taxis and lumbering buses.
I can count on one hand the number of times that New York City has slept in my lifetime: The days after September 11th, the blackout of 2003; the eerie quiet that followed Hurricane Sandy, and during a handful of blizzards that dumped feet of snow on our streets and forced everything to a standstill. But through all of those experiences we still had each other. I remember sledding in Central Park with friends after the blizzards; I remember visiting family after September 11th; I remember groups of people reading magazines on the stifling sidewalks and eating dinner together by candlelight during the blackout. I remember that no one was alone.
Now, so many of us are alone. (Or worse, trapped with the same people inside a too-small space without the promise of escape.) And after seeing the door of St. Patrick’s Cathedral bolted shut and its steps empty of people—likely for the first time since it was built in 1879—I realized that New York City is nothing without its people. We don’t have the charming architecture of Paris, the ancient ruins and awe-inspiring monuments of Rome, or the palm trees and pools of Los Angeles, but we have personality in spades.
I am entwined in this city like a fly caught in a web, unable to ever make a full escape. Whether I leave for a year, a month, or a week, I always make my way back. I know I am home as soon as I arrive at John F. Kennedy airport, where the customs officers are all from different countries themselves and speak as many languages as the passengers flying in. I am home when I settle into the lumpy backseat of a cab and give the driver my address; perhaps he's from from Senegal and let's me practice my French. I am home as we race across the Queensboro bridge and I see our metropolis sparkling from across the river.
And I feel most at home when I am reunited with my grandmothers who, like their mothers before them, were born in New York City and have spent their lives here too. They have taught me everything that is worth knowing about this city, from the Philharmonic and the Museum of Modern Art, to the flea markets and Peter Luger’s. For me, not being able to see them is the hardest part of this quarantine. Without them, and without everyone else who makes this city so special, New York does not feel like itself.
I don’t know what we will do when this quarantine ends. Will we crowd onto subways and push past each other in lobbies? Will we go to museums and sit in crowded theaters? Will we go out for drinks and dinner with friends? Or will we find it hard to leave our apartments, still wary of the crowds after being sheltered for so long? We may have to ease ourselves back into life with each other.
But I will be so grateful to have our city back—because if I’ve learned anything over the course of the past few weeks, it is that New York without its people is not New York. I will not doubt get aggravated with busy sidewalks, endless traffic, and packed subway cars, but I will remember that New York is no longer New York without those crowds and that noise. I will remember that the spirit of New York comes not from the skyscrapers and the department stores and the museums, but from everyone else.
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