Write every day: Thoughts about an empty Times Square

Phin and I took our second subway ride to see what Times Square looks like now. Known as one of the most hectic areas of the city that many locals avoid, it’s gone silent. The show, for now, doesn’t go on. But this is not the first time in its history Times Square has been silent. 400 years ago before New York was New York, the center of Times Square was a beaver pond that served as the heartbeat of what was Mannahatta, the island of the Lenape tribe. We’ve forgotten that pond because now it’s a Walgreens.

The only visible remnant of the time of the Lenape is Broadway’s crooked line that traverses the island from north to south. That crooked line follows the Indian Wickquasgeck Trail that guided the Lenape through the thick forests dense with pin oak, chestnut, poplar, and pine that often opened into expansive fields dotted with wild strawberries.

In Times Square on the summer solstice

I thought about those forests as Phin and I stood outside of the Times Square subway station on Saturday night, the summer solstice, behind a police barrier with hundreds of unmasked NYPD officers standing around guarding empty storefronts from protesters who would never arrive. Times Square now has only a dull, barely-there hum, just a shell of its former self. It’s on an extended intermission, for now.

I came of age in Times Square, working in Broadway theaters and living in Hell’s Kitchen, completely unaware of its ancient forest past. Broadway shows are collectively NYC’s largest tourist attraction, and I’m sad that it will be a long time before we see it return the way that it existed prior to March. Without tourists, this industry and all the businesses that have grown up around it can’t survive. With the constant threat of COVID-19, it’s hard to imagine how these theaters will reopen. I worked backstage in them for years. In one of them we could barely keep the rats under control (that’s not an exaggeration) much less sanitize them against a deadly virus. They were never built to be sanitized.

Columbus Circle

Phin and I walked along 42 Street, up 6th Avenue, and then crossed back west on 47th Street. 42nd to 47th, from 6th to 8th Avenues, is totally blocked off and guarded by police around the clock. They say it’s necessary. I think it’s a colossal waste of resources we don’t have.

We kept walking along 47th, over to 8th Avenue, and up to Columbus Circle. This area used to be a collection of streams that flowed south and then collectively roared east before finding their way to the East River. Now its center is a statue that commemorates the destruction of this land and the people who lived here. If protestors try to take down Columbus’s statue, an army of police officers who are ready to protect stone over human life will stop them. On our long walk Phin and I saw less than 10 other people aside from police officer, who numbered into the hundreds.

The gift of resilience

Since I spent so much of my early career in Times Square and working in theater, seeing all the lights dimmed, the stages empty, and the music replaced by silence made me tear up. Whenever we lose something familiar, something we assumed would just go on forever, there is a mourning. How could there not be?

As someone who’s lived through traumas before, who’s lost nearly all of my material belongings to a fire over a decade ago just north of Times Square, who feels lucky every day to have another day at all because I’ve had several near-death experiences, I’ve grown used to constant, shocking, transformative change. Building resilience is painful and frightening because you have to survive tragedy after tragedy to create that emotional muscle. But once you have it, nothing can break you. Resilience is a superpower.

Sure, I still get angry, sad, disappointed, and hurt. I may be resilient but I’m still a hopeful human being. I just never expect the happy path. I expect difficulty and rejection, which is lucky because that’s usually what I find. And that’s not anything particular to me; that’s just life.

My resilience helps me to dream and work for very big goals. I never stop climbing because I know how great the view is up there, and I know how good it feels to go down the other side of the mountain. I have many mountains ahead of me and that doesn’t scare me at all—it’s actually what motivates me to keep going.

The future of New York

And this brings me back to my city. I know in my mind and heart that New York will never be the same again. The transformation we are just beginning is massive and unrelenting. Many businesses, whole industries, and ways of life will be relegated to the history books, just like the long-gone beaver pond. Already many people are leaving the city. Many more will leave in the months ahead either by choice or because there is no way for them to stay. I’ve been in both of those situations before, and my heart breaks for people who leave because leaving a place you once loved always hurts to some degree no matter if it’s by choice or necessity.

City agencies will also be forced into unprecedented change. New York has a $10 billion budget deficit now. People and businesses leaving the city will reduce the amount of collected taxes even further, and that will require a total government rethinking. This pandemic and the demands for social justice have exposed massive holes, inadequacies, and inequities in our education, police, and healthcare systems to name just a few.

But in all this pain, there will also be new possibilities. The seeds are there. They’ve always been there. Now they get their chance to shine, or at the very least their chance to try. They’ll send out shoots and try to create roots in what’s left of the proverbial soil of New York. Only time will tell us if they can survive and thrive in what remains.

Phase 2

This week New York City began Phase 2 of reopening. We’ve reopened more parts of our city, and now we wait and watch the numbers, and see what happens. Whatever lies ahead, I’ll be here, doing my best to usher in the city’s next chapter whatever that chapter may be. We are living through one of the most drastic and monumental changes in our history, an inflection point that will forever define a before and after. I don’t know what the future holds but I’m committed to showing up and doing my best.