April in New York City
“There’s no vents in any hospital. They just had five people die in here,” said local paramedic Aaron Midel, 42, as he gestured across the street to Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. The hospitals were running out of ventilators — it was all over the news. In Italy, doctors were deciding who received a ventilator, who lived, and who died. I wondered if that was going on inside Mount Sinai.
Over a pulled-down mask, Midel scratched his head and said, “It’s just one after another. It’s like the purge,” pausing to puff on a cigarette.
It really was like the purge. The death toll in the U.S was about 10,000 when I checked the news that morning. The day before, on my way into the city, I saw a glimpse of what looked like the refrigerated trucks set up as mobile morgues that I’d seen on the news. I pulled off the highway to investigate and realized I was at Bellevue Hospital Center, in Manhattan, the oldest public hospital in the United States.
I tightened my mask as I got out of my van, unsure if there were lingering virus spores clinging in the air from COVID-19 patients heading into the hospital. With my camera discretely tucked under my jacket, I nonchalantly walked around to the back of the hospital, past a row of ambulances, the emergency room entrance, and then came upon the white trucks I had seen from the highway. Police, military and other personnel were guarding the row of long white trailers. While walking past the mobile morgues their eyes jotted from me and then back to each other. I took my shots and a police officer sounded her siren briefly. I kept my focus on my camera’s viewfinder and continued walking. I rounded a corner and through the windows, I could see hospital staff having their temperatures taken.
Suddenly, I heard sirens and shouting. Firefighters lined their trucks in the street and stood clapping. I saw hundreds of staff going in and out of the hospital doors. The firefighters were cheering to thank the health care workers during their shift change.
Sharing the sidewalk with nurses, firefighters and EMTs really brought the horror stories I saw on the news into perspective.
“I guess I’m just more concerned about my family. I have older members in my family,” Midel told me. “I mean, I don’t want to get sick, I don’t want to be intubated.”
Although we talked for just 10 minutes, we really got to know each other. I told him I was a student journalist and drove to New York City, the epicenter of the coronavirus. He lit up another cigarette and pointed to my sweat pants that read, “UC SAN DIEGO TRITONS.” I told him I lived on campus in San Diego until they asked students to leave the dorms, so, for now, I’m a roving journalist.
He told me how much he loved surfing in San Diego. He worked hard and looked forward to escaping to be with friends or go surfing. Then, he said what I believe many people had been thinking: there was no light at the end of this tunnel, and he didn’t know when it was going to end. The virus could be with us forever and just keep coming back.
He told me I had to go to Times Square, and that I would never see it that empty again. That night I drove to Times Square. I parked on Broadway and West 50th and slept for the night.
I woke to ambulance sirens, the ones I heard ringing throughout the city all night. I hopped out of the van with my camera to empty streets. A few people were walking around, but it was mostly police and food delivery cyclists. There was still the famous Naked Cowboy posing with a few people. My previous trips to the city accustomed me to nonstop action, and sharing the Square with a dozen scattered people felt apocalyptic.
Thinking back to my conversation with Midel, he told me, “The homeless population will be decimated.”
He was right. There was one man who appeared to be homeless. I took his picture and he asked me for a buck. I wish I had had something to give him, but I didn’t have anything on me. I tried making conversation, but he just looked away. With no tourists, the panhandlers I was used to seeing were nowhere to be found.
I drove out of Time’s Square and stopped along the way at a scene with a few police cars, double-parked with their lights on. Nothing noteworthy was going on, but as I left the scene, I saw handwritten signs nailed to phone poles asking for volunteers to deliver groceries to the vulnerable, along with a number to call if people need groceries delivered.
It made me smile. I snapped a picture and kept going until the smells of pizza wafted past my nose. A couple was standing outside a pizza parlor waiting for a pie. Customers weren’t allowed in the store or any sit-down restaurants, but they could still get their food to go. I stood in line behind them, ordered a cheese pizza, and realized it was time to go home.
On my drive home I realized I could never fully process the fear I sensed from behind the real and figurative masks people wore, the eerie quiet of the once lively streets and the incomprehensible death toll. What I will take with me is the comradery I experienced between New Yorkers. They will leave me feeling forever humbled.
Below are the rest of my images taken between April 5th and 8th.
