New York, open city

The last time he had visited New York was a couple of weeks before the pandemic broke out in the United States. It was the beginning of March 2020 and in the city there was already some concern about the dire news that arrived from Europe and what was beginning to be known about a virus, Covid-19, which was raging in China. At the time, hardly anyone could have imagined that shortly thereafter the nation’s most vibrant metropolis would become an epicenter of deaths amid the general confusion.

I have returned to the Big Apple a year and a half after this global epidemic shook our lives. The arrival of summer has coincided with the lifting of severe restrictions that for long months New Yorkers followed almost to the letter. A relaxation that has been possible due to the high vaccination rate achieved in an area of ​​the country where the majority share more with the recommendations of the experts than with the theories that turn their backs on scientific data.

From the times of confinement, the constant wailing of sirens and the deserted streets, a Manhattan resurfaces that awakens with a nerve from forced lethargy. Far from the bad omens that sentenced it, it gradually repopulates itself with the energy that has always characterized this vertical and urban strip. All you have to do is walk through the long district to see that the museums, restaurants, shops and even live music venues already have a busy clientele. On a Wednesday night there was a queue at clubs like the Blue Note in the West Village to hear good jazz.

The vaccinated (more than 70 percent of the population in NY has already received at least one dose) can go to most places without using the mask. However, there are many who still feel safer with it on. It is still strange to discard it when for months life could depend on such helpful protection. Nobody in New York, where the lethal consequence of the virus affected so many directly or indirectly, forgets what it meant to lock themselves up overnight in a city made to live in the open asphalt and in the shadow of skyscrapers.

On the occasion of the Gay Pride celebrations, the southern part of Manhattan has received visitors who until now did not dare to travel. The terraces are a swarm of anticipation glee and tables on the narrow sidewalk of the legendary Stonewall Inn celebrate the advances that have cost blood, sweat and tears in the LGBTQ community. Farther down Canal Street, Chinatown recovers the tug of war of street bargaining to buy every merchandise imaginable. On Delancey, the meeting point of the various migratory waves since the mid-nineteenth century, the Williamsburg Bridge is a silent witness to the daily traffic between the island of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Without losing sight of the wake of deaths from a pandemic that has yet to be eradicated, the crowd takes to the streets with renewed courage. New York, open city. [©FIRMAS PRESS]

The author is a journalist.
Twitter: ginamontaner

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