Post 173 - August 31, 2020

Day 173…

There seems to be a perception these days that New York is a lawless hell hole overrun by violent homeless people who are squatting in the city’s luxury hotel chains and just waiting to kill us all. People seem to think that violent protesters are looting and pillaging on a nightly basis.

If that’s what you are thinking, then you are merely buying into the rhetoric of a Federal Administration which has completely abandoned any pretense of truth-telling. They are attempting to terrify us all by lying about everything and anything to scare us into voting for them to fix it.

Make no mistake, there is violence and discord happening in specific places around the country. All of it, however, is happening under the watch of this current President. Saying that violent protests will erupt nation-wide if the Democrats gain power is a laughable statement. It is happening NOW.

Some of its causes can be directly traced back to the policies and pathetically inadequate response of this specific Administration.

These incidents are occurring in a limited number of places. The way that the media is covering them, saturating the airwaves, makes it seem like we are living in the lawless Wild-West. That is not what’s happening. It’s certainly not what’s happening here in New York City.

Yes, there are issues, as there are everywhere, but honestly, nothing is going on that makes me even question whether or not I want to continue to live here at all.

People are back out on the streets. Walking. Shopping. And Eating.

Restaurants city-wide have expanded out into the streets. The Mayor has initiated a program called Open Streets that, to date, has closed off 76 Streets and 9 pedestrian plazas to traffic in favor of dining tables.

Amsterdam Avenue, near us, has been closed off from 96th Street all the way up to Columbia University - nearly a mile. The cross-town streets are still open to allow traffic through, but the uptown/downtown blocks are now shut down and full of dining areas. In some places, musicians have set up speakers away from those who are eating and are filling the area with music.

Tom’s Diner, up near Columbia, is famous for being the diner on the TV show Seinfeld. Their outside dining area is now partitioned off with barricades with the characters from the show’s names on them - George, Kramer, Elaine and Jerry.

Suzanne Vega, who was in school at Barnard at the same time I was there, wrote her song Tom’s Diner about that very same restaurant.

Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doodoo, doo
Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, duhdoodoo

I am sitting in the morning
At the diner on the corner
I am waiting at the counter
For the man to pour the coffee…

It is a popular place where all of us went. It was good and it was cheap. Our favorite waitress back then, who must have been in her eighties, had fire-engine red lipstick and a wig of jet-black hair that was always crooked. “Whaddaya have?”

All over the rest of Manhattan, dining areas with plants, lighting and carpets have been set up. And people are happily going out to eat at them.

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the largest gothic cathedral in the world, is on Amsterdam at 110th Street. While there are no services, a limited number of people at a time are allowed to come in for private contemplation and solace for a few hours during the mornings.

The city’s museums have finally reopened. Capacity is limited and you need to sign up for a timed entry. You have to wear a mask.

So far, from what I can see, because there are no tourists around to battle with, it is fairly easy to get in whenever you want to. Experiencing a museum without a crowd of selfie-snapping kids between you and the art is an extremely rare experience that we should all be taking advantage of.

Retail stores are open throughout the city. Lysol disinfectant spray seems to be the one thing that is still in shortage. Somebody found some the other day and it was remarkable enough that they posted about it. Everything else is pretty readily available. On the rare occasion that a store is out of something, the one next door will have it.

There is no feeling anywhere that we need to hoard anything. The thing about hoarding is that we have all discovered is that to do it properly you need a massive amount of room. None of us have that here in the city. The extra stuff we all got together at the beginning of the shut-down is long gone. Toilet paper and coffee disappear quickly.

Masks are required in every store and, like everywhere else, only a limited number of people are allowed inside at any one time. Distance markers on the sidewalks are now ubiquitous.

Most everyone out and about in the city is wearing a mask.

The actual mandate is that you maintain social distance and when you can’t, you wear a mask. The mandate is not that you wear a mask if you are by yourself far away from other people.

Certainly, there are people with masks under their chins or covering their mouths and not their noses, but honestly, most people seem to have them on.

Every single store in the city has a sign outside of it saying that to enter you must wear a mask. Every bus periodically flashes a Masks Mandatory sign. The subway LED signs have a steady stream of mask-wearing notices.

Yesterday, while I was walking around in the Village, I passed a store that sells eyeglasses. “Make your mask jealous” was the sales sign printed in the window near their collection of sunglasses.

Despite the fact that many people are either not working or working from home, the traffic throughout the city has increased. It’s still not at the level it was. There are still no tourist busses.

In March and April when you walked outside, you could almost cross the street without looking it was so empty. That’s not at all the case now. People are out and about in their cars. Trucks are delivering their goods. These days, you actually have to wait for the light to change before you cross - something most New Yorkers are usually loathe to do.

The homeless people that have been installed in many of the hotels dotted around are still a problem. After a huge community outcry a couple of weeks ago, the city began posting police officers near some of them. Yesterday, I noticed that the cops posted near the Lucerne on 79th Street were no longer there.

There are certainly far more homeless on the streets than there were, but I can’t say that it makes me feel unsafe. Of course, I am a tall white man, so some of my friends who are not those things don’t necessarily feel the same way. The big difference to me is a marked increase in the number of people asking passersby for help.

There is still the occasional march or rally, but all of them have been peaceful. On Thursday, Michael and I joined a small rally near Bethesda Fountain in Central Park that was well organized and totally orderly.

When I first moved to New York in the early 1980’s, you really needed to keep your wits about you when you walked around. It was actually dangerous then. Living here then, you quickly developed an extra sense that kept you from walking down some streets or perhaps crossing to the other side of a particular street.

Once I developed it myself, I found that it never fully left me. There have been times in other places around the world when that internal radar has suddenly pinged back in. I always listen to it.

So far, for me at least, that has not happened again to me here in New York. Yes, I am aware of a certain rise in that kind of energy, but for me it hasn’t been enough to make that significant an impression.

We are all facing a myriad of serious issues. The closer we get to this election in November, the more desperate the GOP is going to get and the more that they are going to lie. The level of hysterical exaggeration pouring out of our President has reached a fever pitch and it is only going to rise.

This man has failed. Pure and simple, he has just failed. It’s time to stop listening to him completely and to just move on. Let him thrash and wail.

It is a gorgeous day out there.

We have a timed reservation to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art later today. We will take a walk through the park to get there, dodging the joggers on the trails and the families playing out on the lawns.

On the way home, we need to pick up some more wine. The store on the corner near us imports interesting bottles from all around the world. They have been suggesting new things for us to try and so far, haven’t steered us wrong.

Later on, I may take a bike ride downtown, deep into the city that I love.

New York City is stronger than anyone thinks. It has survived through many things and it will certainly survive through this. It will take far more than one small pathetic lying con-man and a hoard of his criminal cronies to bring us down.

#newyorkstrong