Wednesday morning was cold. Just above freezing at 8:30 am. I wandered past the old apartment building at 88th and Amsterdam to witness an already-formed queue of mostly Hispanic people. The CitiMD on Broadway had only opened a half hour earlier and yet the covid testing line wrapped around the block.
Just a block away another line about the same size had also formed. This one was comprised mostly of African Americans waiting for the Westside Campaign Against Hunger to open up in front of the Methodist Church.
A year ago neither of these lines existed.
When schools closed on March 15th New York city emptied out in an income biased way. On the Upper West Side that was a 25% drop. Two thirds of those who left were college educated, white, and making more than $120K per year.
That’s not meant to be an indictment of people with money. But it is a reminder of the inequality that exists even in affluent zip codes. The lines also are a reminder of the inequality with which COVID-19 is hammering communities. We are not “all in this together”.
Were it not so incomprehensibly tragic, it would be merely ironic that the Corona neighborhood of Queens has been hammered by an eponymous virus with devastating results. Doubly ironic that this is home to the New York Hall of Science. All of this is adjacent to the faded grandeur of the 1964 World’s Fair… a celebration of “Peace Through Understanding”, dedicated to “Man’s Achievement on a Shrinking Globe.”
Corona Queens has among the highest concentrations of undocumented people. So many of them escaping violence, and despair. There is incredible crowding, and with families ineligible for government assistance programs, struggling without healthcare and without employment.
New York City doesn’t care if your kids are documented or undocumented. They are expected to be in schools. They are welcomed into the schools. But the schools are closed… again.
So to be able to take care of their school-aged kids, parents will have to stop working… again.
The Borough of Queens has the highest rate of infection… again.
It’s Thanksgiving week, and those who can leave New York City are going to skedaddle.. again.
Thanksgiving… time to spare a thought for so many who haven’t got much for which to be thankful this year.
Both of those lines on the Upper West Side are going to get much longer. I fear this city isn’t remotely up to the task of either line wrapped around the block on the Upper West Side much less the ones that will form in Corona Park.
Let’s at least distribute the vaccine first to the people who had to stay.