New York Magazine - USA (2020-03-30)

10 newyork| march30–april12, 2020

1

BY ANDREW SULLIVAN

Slow Down

it’s quite possible that by the end of all this, almost every Ameri-

can will know of someone who has died. A relative, a friend, an old high-school

classmate ... the names will pop up and migrate through Facebook as the weeks

go by, and in a year’s time, Facebook will duly remind you of the grief or shock

you experienced. The names of the sick will appear to be randomly selected—the

ones you expected and the ones you really didn’t, the famous and the obscure,

the vile and the virtuous. And you will feel the same pang of shock each time

someone you know turns out to have fallen ill. ¶ You’ll wake up each morning

and check to see if you have a persistent cough, or a headache, or a tightness in

the lungs. This is plague living: witnessing the sickness and death of others;

knowing that you too could be next, even as you feel fine. The distancing things

we ref lexively do—“Oh, well, he was a smoker”; “She was

di abetic, you know”; “They were in Italy in Februar y”—become

a little bit harder as time goes by, and the numbers mount, and

th e randomness of it all sinks in. No, this is not under control.

And no, we are not in control. Because we never are.

These photographs

were all taken Friday,

March 20, from the

photographer’s balcony

and rooftop in Bushwick,

two days before the city

went into full shutdown.

Photographs by Jeremy Cohen