NEW YORK, NY

NEW YORKERS may never think of riding the subway the same way again. The city’s cheekby-jowl charms became its greatest liability as it soared to become the global epicenter of the pandemic in a matter of weeks. The steep growth rate indicated the virus probably arrived in the city well before the first case was reported on March 1st. By March 30th, when photographers George Etheredge and Natalie Keyssar were chronicling New York City, cases had topped 38,000, and the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort arrived that morning to help overwhelmed hospitals. Life had come to an eerie standstill, with the peel of sirens replacing the daily scrum of cabs and pedestrians. Residents, only allowed to leave the house for essential work, exercise, or groceries, stood in long, socially distanced lines at supermarkets like this one (left) in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A week later, the city passed a grim landmark when more people died from the coronavirus than had died on 9/11, and New

York state registered more confirmed cases than all of Italy or Spain, the hardest-hit countries in Europe.

“I’VE TAKEN a lot of upsetting pictures in my life, and this was definitely a disturbing moment for me,” Keyssar says of an elderly woman she saw at Union Square (above). “Because you know how high the mortality rate is with the older population.” Etheredge saw an anxious taxi driver (left) watch a hearse pull out of Bellevue Hospital, where tents and trucks, comprising a makeshift morgue, had been brought in. When the starkwhite Navy hospital ship Comfort (right) lumbered up the Hudson River to Pier 90, “it was pretty dramatic to see,” says Etheredge. “People were peering through the quarantine barricades and taking pictures, and the police started to kick them out if they were too close to each other.”

HUNDREDS STOOD IN LINE to be tested at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens (right), one of the first to be overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients. Delivering remarks in Manhattan, Mayor Bill de Blasio (above) said he asked the White House for 400 more ventilators as the city’s supply dwindled. Low-income neighborhoods like Elmhurst are shouldering a disproportionate amount of suffering as residents are more likely to have jobs that put them at risk for exposure, like delivery services. “You’re not seeing this situation in wealthy neighborhoods,” says Keyssar. “There, no one is waiting outdoors in a long line for testing.”