March -- July 2020

New York in the time of coronavirus

A strangely transformed universe of empty streets and office buildings, vacant airports and train stations, shuttered schools, darkened theaters, closed restaurants and diners, and padlocked playgrounds and dog parks

June 12, 2020: Pell Street in Chinatown on Manhattan's Lower East Side (above). The neighborhood is usually packed on Friday nights in the spring, but not this time. Doyers Street, just off Pell, also looks forlorn.

June 16, 2020: Vesey Street, a crucial part of Lower Manhattan's usually frenzied financial district, as another work day wraps up.

June 13, 2020: With restaurants and diners closed during the pandemic, food delivery guys are now hometown heroes. Night after night they bring food fast and dependably to New Yorkers who have few other options.

Grand Central Terminal in mid-March 2020, just as the coronavirus lockdown was starting. On a normal workday the station accommodates about 250,000 riders. The quarantine has turned that daily flood of humanity into a trickle.

March 23, 2020: The Oculus on the rebuilt World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan. When the quarantine began, ridership on the New York-New Jersey PATH train fell from 21,000 daily passengers in March to 4,730 in May.

March 18, 2020: Broadway Junction, Brooklyn: Not exactly the familiar jammed platforms at this key subway station bordering Bedford-Stuyvesant and East New York. The City website says an analysis of turnstile data at more than 450 stations citywide shows entries had already plummeted 33 percent by mid-March.

May 27, 2020: Silent spring. Fulton Street in Lower Manhattan

May 15, 2020: Social distancing becomes a thing.

June 20, 2020: Social distancing remains a thing.

From the Astoria, Queens N train platform

July 17, 2020: Crowds remain remarkably thin on a business day in the Times Square subway station, the city's busiest.

Joseph Dolman

Oct 5, 2015

Waiting for the storm next time

On Sunday the skies were clear, the winds had eased and the waterfowl had resumed their patrol of the East River shoreline, pecking in the sand for tiny bites to eat or diving crazily into the surf for heartier fare. Downtown residents, meanwhile, had resumed their routines of biking or jogging or fishing or tai chi along the East River Esplanade, relieved that Hurricane Joaquin was finally roaring out to sea and not aiming at us. Count me among them. Because despite what the

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Joseph Dolman

Sep 16, 2015

Verrazano awaits a new day in the sun

This statue of Giovanni da Verrazano currently lies behind a chain-link fence as Battery Park is refurbished. On the upside, Verrazano was the first to correctly map New York Harbor. On the downside, the ancient mariner mistook Chesapeake Bay for the long-sought sea passage to India and China. Nobody's perfect. We'll be glad to see him back on his perch soon. #GiovannidaVerrazano #BatteryPark #LowerManhattan

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Stop bargaining away the city's heritage

Joseph Dolman

Sep 8, 2015

Stop bargaining away the city's heritage

A vital link to the city's past is in danger of slipping away. The National Trust for Historic Preservation last week included Lower Manhattan's South Street Seaport district on its annual list of America's 11 Most Endangered Places. The trust correctly worries that a 43-story residential highrise proposed by the Dallas-based Howard Hughes Corp. would wreck the Seaport's unique relationship to the waterfront and compromise one of Manhattan's last intact 19th-century neighborh

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Joseph Dolman

Sep 2, 2015

Calatrava's albatross? Don't bet on it

These are frustrating times for world-famous architect Santiago Calatrava, designer of the long-awaited WTC Transportation Hub. When his PATH commuter rail station finally comes to life within the next few months, it will be eight years overdue with a pricetag of $4 billion, twice the original estimate. Even by New York standards, those numbers sound a little nuts. Four billion dollars for a station that will serve maybe 200,000 riders a day? Did the Port Authority let Calatr

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CityEdition

A daily photoblog

Scenes from the streets, subways and shorelines of NYC

March -- July 2020

New York in the time of coronavirus

June 12, 2020: Pell Street in Chinatown on Manhattan's Lower East Side (above). The neighborhood is usually packed on Friday nights in the spring, but not this time. Doyers Street, just off Pell, also looks forlorn.

June 16, 2020: Vesey Street, a crucial part of Lower Manhattan's usually frenzied financial district, as another work day wraps up.

June 13, 2020: With restaurants and diners closed during the pandemic, food delivery guys are now hometown heroes. Night after night they bring food fast and dependably to New Yorkers who have few other options.

Grand Central Terminal in mid-March 2020, just as the coronavirus lockdown was starting. On a normal workday the station accommodates about 250,000 riders. The quarantine has turned that daily flood of humanity into a trickle.

March 23, 2020: The Oculus on the rebuilt World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan. When the quarantine began, ridership on the New York-New Jersey PATH train fell from 21,000 daily passengers in March to 4,730 in May.

May 27, 2020: Silent spring. Fulton Street in Lower Manhattan

May 15, 2020: Social distancing becomes a thing.

June 20, 2020: Social distancing remains a thing.

From the Astoria, Queens N train platform

July 17, 2020: Crowds remain remarkably thin on a business day in the Times Square subway station, the city's busiest.

March -- July 2020

New York in the time of coronavirus

June 12, 2020: Pell Street in Chinatown on Manhattan's Lower East Side (above). The neighborhood is usually packed on Friday nights in the spring, but not this time. Doyers Street, just off Pell, also looks forlorn.

June 16, 2020: Vesey Street, a crucial part of Lower Manhattan's usually frenzied financial district, as another work day wraps up.

June 13, 2020: With restaurants and diners closed during the pandemic, food delivery guys are now hometown heroes. Night after night they bring food fast and dependably to New Yorkers who have few other options.

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Grand Central Terminal in mid-March 2020, just as the coronavirus lockdown was starting. On a normal workday the station accommodates about 250,000 riders. The quarantine has turned that daily flood of humanity into a trickle.

March 23, 2020: The Oculus on the rebuilt World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan. When the quarantine began, ridership on the New York-New Jersey PATH train fell from 21,000 daily passengers in March to 4,730 in May.

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May 27, 2020: Silent spring. Fulton Street in Lower Manhattan

May 15, 2020: Social distancing becomes a thing.

June 20, 2020: Social distancing remains a thing.

From the Astoria, Queens N train platform

July 17, 2020: Crowds remain remarkably thin on a business day in the Times Square subway station, the city's busiest.