‘Twas the Night Before

December 24, 2020

Mark Twain had a ton of pithy lines (check out the Gazette‘s motto!) and one of the more famous ones is ‘the report of my death was an exaggeration.‘ Going around Midtown last evening we kept thinking about how that line describes NYC perfectly. Last Spring it felt like this place had taken a mortal blow from the pandemic. At that point we alone were feeling the full brunt of it. All of the cases and deaths were here. Everything was shutting down, some people were fleeing, in other states politicians were talking about closing their borders to New Yorkers. Even some of our fellow New York Staters were none too welcoming.

Those of us who’ve been here awhile recognized something in it: the financial crisis in the 70s when an American President told us to drop dead. The AIDS epidemic in the 80s and 90s. 9/11. Always New York City. And don’t think we didn’t see right through the bullshit, ‘we’re all New Yorkers now’ after 9/11. The fire-breathing preachers who could barely contain their glee as we died from AIDS. Conservative hicks yucking it up over Ford telling us to ‘drop dead.’ And now this, our chock full of immigrants and crime ridden Gomorrah on the Hudson was a filthy hotbed of disease with which we threatened to infect the rest of the country. It felt like they’d be quoting Hitler pretty soon about cutting out the infection to save the Homeland.

Because they love to hate us, those Americans naturally assumed it was our fault that the new disease hit us, and only us, so damn hard. They were perhaps amused when Governor Cuomo stepped up and led us through Hell, what with having elected a kleptomaniac nincompoop President and grown accustomed to his trademark incompetence. Lots of them not so secretly rooted for the disease to take us out. When they called us a ghost town you could practically taste their disdain.

But then we recovered…and THEY fell ill and started dying. We didn’t say we told you so or gloat. We hoped they’d benefit from our experience, one that claimed the lives of more than twenty thousand of us. But they didn’t, or they couldn’t, learn from us. Instead they stormed state capitals with their guns bristling. They pitched ugly scenes in stores when asked to don a face covering to reduce the chances of somebody else getting sick. They were wrong. Wrong about this being an exclusively NYC problem that would never concern them. Wrong that it spelled the end for America’s number one city. Wrong that it was a hoax concocted to make Bold Leader look bad.

In other words, the report of NYC’s death was an exaggeration. Last evening we witnessed an actual miracle on 34th Street. New Yorkers were out and about. Macy’s was an oasis of light and movement. Cars, buses and trucks jockeyed for position with the cop cars, fire engines and ambulances that sped by. The windows on the Broadway side of Macy’s were dedicated to our front line medical personnel who we can never thank enough. And to, yes, the New Yorkers who stayed behind. Who didn’t bolt in fear. Who didn’t give up on this place. Who knew it’d be bad, but had done bad before. Many times. We’ve been down but never out and were not out this time either.

On the train ride uptown everybody had on their mask, looked at their phone, kept as much distance as possible during what passes for the evening rush nowadays. We come in all shades, shapes and sizes but you can tell you’re in the best of company when you’re riding uptown with dozens of your fellow New Yorkers. No bullshit, this City will be back in ’21.