With New Yorkers forced to stay home, and arts organizations getting creative in how they are making available their offerings, The New Yorker‘s “Goings On About Town” section has suddenly become more relevant to the rest of us, whose visits to the city were previously so infrequent as to make reading it a form of masochistic eavesdropping.
But with NYC now the epicenter of coronavirus, it’s the “Talk of the Town” section that’s become the pulse of life for the rest of us too, especially David Remnick’s reports from whatever-story apartment he lives in. (I used to think New Yorkers lived “out of” their apartments, but now that’s not exactly the case.)
(Update: The magazine’s “Dispatches from a Pandemic” tag collects the many wonderful, heartfelt, depressing, insightful, and entertaining-despite-it-all musings from their city-dwelling writers.)
To those environmentalists among us (who include both ecomodernists and ecocentrists) who look favorably upon the way New Yorkers (and Hong Kongers and others) have devised eco-efficient ways to live on top of each other so as to unintentionally free up chunks of the rest of the world for wildlife to recover, NYC has become all the more the world’s downtown.
And so we wonder what will happen to downtowns in a pandemic-laden world. If we are to give wildlife the space that it needs — and that will protect us from its viruses and other risks — by moving into higher-density living arrangements, won’t that also put us at risk of becoming tinderboxes for the viruses that do get released from the grips of any such socio-natural “contract“?
The question is rhetorical, if not a bit preposterous, because the half-earth proposals are problematic. But higher-density life in eco-efficient cities remains a part of any solution to climate change and broader ecological crises in part because the vibrancy of downtowns makes life more culturally satisfying for many. If how we live together is to change, it must take into account how we want to live together.
In any case, Remnick’s writing makes for evocative reading in part because it puts the spotlight on those who deserve it, rather than those who hog it to satisfy their political narcissism. (You know who I mean.)
The story of coronavirus, as told from the future, will have to be the story of how it brought the margins to the center, rehumanizing those who have always done the dirty work of empire. So even if New York remains the empire city, the way in which coronavirus turns it inside-out will become part of the story of the way in which global humanity got turned inside out to create a more viable future.
“The streets of New York City are so desolate now that you half expect tumbleweed to blow along the pavement where cars and cabs once clustered. [. . .]
But then something happens. Joy comes at seven. (Or is it sheer catharsis?) Every evening, in many neighborhoods across the city, cheering breaks out [. . .]
What’s being applauded at seven is the courage of professionals, many of them working without the protective gear they need. Some have seen their salaries cut; some have fallen ill, others soon will. We’re applauding the likes of Anthony Fauci [. . .]. We’re cheering everyone who makes it possible for the city to avoid the myriad conceivable shortfalls and collapses: grocery clerks and ambulance drivers; sanitation workers; pharmacists and mail carriers; truckers, cops, and firemen; the deliveryman who shrugs off the straps of his knapsack and jabs the intercom buzzer with a gloved finger; the community of artists, dancers, d.j.s, musicians, and actors who have lost paychecks and jobs but are posting paintings on Instagram, FaceTiming soliloquies, singing into iPhones. And we’re thanking those who are providing straight information, lobbying Washington for medical supplies, looking out for the most vulnerable among us, and making critical decisions based on the scientific evidence, no matter how unforgiving.
The time to hug a sanitation worker (or shake hands with them, as Mierle Laderman Ukeles did for 11 months) is not exactly now. But the time to respect them and their social and ecological and medical maintenance compatriots, give them extra tips (if you can), and recognize their labor for the essential work that it is, is always.
(This post was updated on April 21, 2020.)
