Elevator Episodes
These are my elevator episodes from the last fifteen months, collected from my continuous blog, a little personal pandemic history from the Upper West Side, New York City.
March 15. Here in the building, the elevator is difficult territory. Many Asians live here, presumably experienced in dealing with infectuous diseases. A woman is hooded in heavy winter coats and pushes three huge suitcases in and out, barely able to maneuver them. Another woman pulls up the collar of her jacket, obviously terrified through every second until the ride is over.
April 4. New rituals at the elevator. I come around the corner of the hall just as the cabin opens. A woman, unmasked, stands in front of it and takes a step to the side, “You take it.” — “No please, of course, you take it, yes, yes.”
On the way down, the elevator stops several times. On each floor the decision repeats: are those waiting willing to get on, what do those already on the elevator think of this decision.
Masked people enter the elevator, they press with their bare hand, and the tip of their finger, on the button L for lobby, although it is already lit.
April 7. The building management writes that from today we should please wear masks in the shared rooms, especially in the elevators. Any cloth in front of the mouth and nose will do.
April 8. I tried to put a winter scarf around my face three times. Not because I believe in any protective effect for myself or for others, but so that people in the elevator would not be afraid of me. To show my good will and to comply with the request — or is it an instruction? — of the building management.
April 9. When the elevator door opens on one of the floors on my way to the lobby, an elderly lady is standing in front of it. She points down, I point down, the door closes without her getting in. Is the new etiquette perhaps to get out and offer her my place in the elevator? I don’t think about it until I’m already moving again.
April 14. Outside the elevator: neighbor in black ski cap covering mouth and nose, black gloves, yellow T-shirt and shorts, and wool-lined slippers. “I feel so ridiculous,” he says. “Do I want to mug the doorman?” As the elevator opens, I offer to let him use it alone. “Oh, no, come on in.” We stand side by side, not in the way it has become customary for one of us to turn our heads toward the wall or the door.
May 27. There is cascading etiquette when riding an elevator. If someone in the lobby is about to leave and you politely don’t get on because it might make the person inside uncomfortable, they might say, “Oh, never mind, come on in.” But it could also be that one doesn’t get in not out of politeness but out of one’s own fear, and then being asked to do it anyway would be an affront. So everyone prefers to say nothing and silently let the door close.
August 17. It can no longer be denied that it is getting emptier. The apartments across the street in my courtyard became empty one by one, and no one new is moving in. I still meet people in the elevators almost every day whom I have never seen here before — there must be, purely mathematically, around four hundred people living in this building — but the crowd seems to be getting smaller overall.
December 6. As caseloads increase, elevator etiquette becomes more complicated. An elderly man with a large shopping cart is in the elevator when I arrive with the children. I tell the kids to go in and want to follow behind myself. “Two at the most!” the man hisses, angrily pushing his cart out of the elevator. I wave the kids back. They come back out, confused. The man stands angrily in the hallway, tearing open his mail. The elevator leaves empty, no one presses the button. The next elevator comes, I tell the man to get in, this one is for him. He pushes the cart in. Before the door closes, an Asian couple comes and joins him in the car. Again the man angrily pushes his cart out of the cabin, the Asians don’t understand what he means and drive off alone. No one presses the button. When the next elevator comes, the man tells us to take it, which we do.
December 16. A young man enters the elevator in front of me, I follow behind. He presses his face as far as it will go into the corner of the car. “Oh, sorry about that,” I say angrily and exit the elevator again. Where do I get as much silence as I would need.
January 2. “Are you going upstairs? Would you please push the elevator button for me?” — I puzzle over what completely new pandemic behavior this might be, only then do I see the kippah and realize the day of the week. He’s tall, lean, about my age, doesn’t seem Orthodox at all. “Third floor, please.” He doesn’t normally take the elevator, he says, but his dog had too much exercise today. A remote-controlled fire truck in the park it has been chasing. I push the buttons with the back of my finger, three and nine.
January 13. Microscopic changes: Until the fall, when running, I didn’t want to put on or have a mask with me. I’d do my running at night so I wouldn’t get too close to anyone. So even when taking the elevator downstairs, I didn’t have a mask with me. After all, it was late at night, and people who didn’t like it didn’t have to get on. Sometimes I also took the stairs down from the ninth floor. As of now, I always take the mask with me, wear it in the elevator, wear it up and wear it down, and on the first few feet down Ninety-first Street until I get to the entrance of Riverside Park. I don’t believe that doing one or the other significantly increases or decreases the risk of infection. I do it for etiquette, and to a small extent out of superstition.
February 5. Lone elevator riders are becoming more common, and one is becoming more adept at spotting them and accommodating their requests without being asked.
March 4. Failure of elevator etiquette: I give way to a short, white-haired woman. “Is it okay if I come in?” I ask, already joining her in the car. “As long as you stay in that corner!” With a quick hop, I’m out again. “No, I’m joking!” I don’t go back inside. “I was just joking!” she says as the door closes.
April 29. Still variations on elevator etiquette. Two women are in the car. I start making my way inside as well and ask, half moving, “Okay if I come in?” One of the women looks at the other in a mixture of bewilderment, helplessness, indignation. I raise my hand and stay outside.
May 25. As of tomorrow — but possibly even as of today due to a date error, according to my information that is immediately, without delay — vaccinated people no longer have to wear a mask in the office. The announcement sounds sacrilegious. It comes with an apology that we are only following the general guidelines. But what if despite being vaccinated you infect someone. But what if there are things we don’t know yet. These would have been irrefutable arguments months ago, but not anymore. Everything starts to slide. In the hallway, in the elevator, in the lobby, I now wear the mask, take it off on the street, and put it on again on the subway stairs. I take it off again on the other subway stairs, put it on again in the lobby and in the elevator, and take it off again on the company floor. With similar meticulousness as back then, at the very beginning of the pandemic, only now I go with the flow.
May 28. Nowhere can you observe the progression of the story better than in the elevator episodes. This time there are three of us in the car when another woman with a dog joins us and politely asks if it’s okay. The woman next to me raises her hand defensively. “No, I guess you’ll have to wait.” The woman bounces back, and with one quick step I am, annoyed, also outside. “No, you would have been okay”, the woman calls out as the door closes. The other woman and I take the next elevator. “Do you have any idea what bothered her?” she asks. “Is it covid, or is it the dog?”
