Ok real talk.
Do you have sharp thoughts or opinions! about NYC COVID deflectors? Cheekie Mr. Luke Winkie wrote a pitch perfect Op-Ed for the NYT’s ongoing series on how the pandemic has affected American society— in a voice we rather dig.
Originally published By Luke Winkie March 11, 2021 |
Mr. Winkie is a writer who has contributed to Vox, The Washington Post and The Atlantic. He has lived in Brooklyn throughout the pandemic. If he’s ever interested in penning a guest post here at Speak To Dave we’d be honored to give him some space to let loose. Below, some choice excerpts from the original piece:
We begin with what prompted this post …
“My social circle started disintegrating in the spring. One by one, friends, acquaintances and colleagues melted away from their tiny Brooklyn apartments and materialized somewhere else in the country. Here today, gone tomorrow.”
Go on … tell us more
“Their escapes went largely unannounced — nobody plans a going-away party in the heat of a pandemic — so I pieced together the puzzle through their social media feeds. Plenty of them had perfect rationalizations; nobody holds any animosity for immunocompromised people who felt safer in the suburbs or those who needed to take shelter after losing their job.
But other decampments looked far more conspicuous. Their Instagram Stories no longer bore any evidence of the New York I shared with them. Now they were uploading from bucolic log cabins, undisclosed upstate getaways and the two-story houses of wherever “back home” happened to be. (A long way from the Morgan Avenue L train stop, that’s for sure.)”
“Meanwhile, I lingered in the Crown Heights one-bedroom I share with my girlfriend, as the cacophony of ambulance sirens wailed outside our windows. By the end of summer, it felt like we were the only ones left in the city.”
Hashtag RELATABLE …
“They say you become a New Yorker after 10 years. I moved here in 2016, but I think 2020 should count for extra credit. Nobody will forget the febrile months of March and April, as we learned that our city would represent the first battlefield in America’s Covid outbreak. Life quickly resembled a volatile petri dish; every possibility seemed to be on the table. Would I soon be lying on a makeshift cot in the Javits Center?or on a medical frigate docked at the Manhattan Cruise Terminal?
We made a trip to the local supermarket and bought up several rations of dried black beans that still sit unopened in the upper recesses of our cupboards. The iconic cash-only steakhouse Peter Luger opened exclusively for delivery and takeout. Chaos reigned. People fled.”
GEAUX AWF!
“And now, we’re somehow at the first anniversary of the stay-at-home order. The pandemic has worsened beyond recognition, even as we’ve grown more accustomed to living with it. But with the vaccination rollout, a new presidential administration and a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, many of those defectors have started coming home. New York is slowly building back the 5 percent of its population it lost last spring, though the exact number of returning inhabitants is difficult to determine.
It’s strange to watch those same friends, acquaintances and colleagues who abandoned ship orbit back to the city. We see them returning to those same tiny Brooklyn apartments as if nobody noticed their calendar-length disappearance — as if we did not witness the taunting patio cookouts that filled their paper trail while we spent 365 consecutive days counting the dots in the ceiling. I believe I speak for all pandemic-weathered New York City residents when I say that we cannot let these transplants off so easy. This indiscretion shall not stand.”
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