NOT THE FINAL BELL
In COVID-hit bldg., they still cheer health care heroes
He does it for his son-in-law, an anesthesiologist who went from putting preoperative patients to sleep to hooking COVID cases to ventilators at the height of the pandemic.
Though most of his neighbors have called it quits, Bob Nusbaum can still be found every night at 7 p.m. outside his Hell’s Kitchen home banging a pot or a pan to salute the city’s health care heroes who continue to fight back against the infectous onslaught.
His family has mercifully been spared, but the Manhattan apartment building where Nusbaum, 68, has lived since it opened 43 years ago has been hit especially hard.
In the eight months since coronavirus unleashed its wrath on the city, Nusbaum said most of his Manhattan Plaza neighbors have paid some economic, emotional or medical price.
The building which encompasses an entire city block between W. 42nd and W. 43rd Sts. and Ninth and 10th Aves., on the edge of Manhattan’s Theater District, is home to more than 3,000 people, about 70 % of whom work in performing arts, an industry reeling from the pandemic. Among those who have lived there at one time are another are Alicia Keys, James Earl Jones and Larry David.
Box office star Samuel L. Jackson once worked there as a security guard.
But now, Nusbaum can’t ride the elevator or use the laundry room without running into someone who hasn’t worked in months.
“COVID hasn’t quit and we haven’t either,” Nusbaum said. “Our building has been hit hard. I think eight people have died, and in a building of 3,000, every performer lost their jobs. Two people have jumped off the building.”
Candles line the lobby as a makeshift memorial for a 13-yearold boy who plunged to his death from a 20th floor terrace last month in what authorities said was a likely suicide. Residents point to the boy’s death as evidence of the toll the pandemic has taken on everyone.
Nusbaum, who works at a construction safety company, gathers with about 20 of his neighbors for the daily health care workers salute. After a day of isolation, the tribute is a chance for residents to socialize, at a safe distance, and unwind.
“It just makes us feel warm inside, and we feel like a community again,” said Robin Baxter, 61, a Broadway actress who has not worked in months. “It really helps us as a support system. It’s all we can do right now.”
“I’ve gotten to know my neighbors that I would have never met had I not done this, because my normal routine would be to go to work, come home, and not venture out,” said Carmen Kelly, an after-school program director for a community service network.
“I’ve literally gotten to know a whole brand new group of folk.”
In the weeks after the pandemic began its relentless assault in March, grateful New Yorkers began gathering each night at building stoops, window sills and balconies to say thank you in colorful and clamorous ways.
“I feel it’s important to support our essential workers, and it’s a shout-out,” said Bob Greenberg, 60, an actor and comedian who has appeared on “Law and Order” and “Vinyl.”
As Greenberg and his neighbors gathered, the temperature dropped below freezing, the coldest night since the lockdown began.
“People hear it, and they respond, and sometimes you hear it from different buildings, people still doing it. But yeah, we’re the last of the Mohicans.”
Nusbaum and neighbor Jeffery Thompson have kept the show on schedule. Thompson, an actor with credits on TV and on Broadway down the street, said he had only missed two courtyard performances.
“It’s a sense of community,” Thompson explained. “Out of this pandemic and out of this emergency, this gathering began, really as a means to express our gratitude for people who are putting their lives at risk for us, and like what happens so many times, the necessity of a situation lends itself to building a community. I know neighbors that I didn’t know before. ”