Central Park, the calm amid NY’s COVID-19 storm
NEW YORK: Gone are the softball games, horse-drawn carriages and hordes of tourists. In their place are pronounced birdsong, solitary walks and renewed appreciation for Central Park’s beauty during New York’s coronavirus lockdown. The 843-acre park - arguably the world’s most famous urban green space - normally bustles with human activity as winter turns to spring. But this year due to COVID-19, it’s the wildlife that is coming out to play. “The energy is quiet, you hear the birds, you hear the wind differently,” 66-year-old former ballet dancer Timothy Foster said, while walking his dog Charlie near the park’s Belvedere Castle.
‘Disturbing’
More than 40 million people visit Central Park every year, bringing with them a hive of commercial pursuits including guided pedicab tours, snack vendors, buskers and breakdancing troupes. Many come to play music at the Strawberry Fields memorial for late Beatle John Lennon or pose for photos in front of a fountain that resembles the one in the opening credits of hit TV show “Friends.” But since mid-March, when New Yorkers were ordered to practice social distancing as the city became America’s coronavirus epicenter, the park has become a place for quick walks alone and somber reflection rather than a spot for picnics and noisy team sports.
“It’s a lot quieter, which is nice. But it’s also disturbing to have it not be overrun with people like it normally is,” 45-yearold writer Carol Hartsell said. Most surreal is the sight of a 12-tent, 68-bed field hospital on a small section of lush lawn on the park’s eastern border, set up to treat coronavirus patients from nearby hospitals. The virus has killed more than 12,000 people in New York state, out of more than 223,000 known infections.
The outbreak has coincided with the blooming of Central Park’s cherry blossom and crabapple trees, as well as North America’s spring bird migration. Yellow pine warblers and blue-gray gnatcatchers frolic near pink and white magnolias and red maple trees, free of the typical background hum of traffic and planes overhead.