Items

2022-06-20

Mask in Germany

I found this mask on the ground outside of a subway in Germany. At the time, masks were still mandatory on transportation, which was surprising since most of the world didn’t make masks mandatory. They even had someone walking around to either give people masks or to remind them of the mask mandate.

2020-07-27

Desolation

The moment I saw this photo, I felt the profoundness of it. The New York subway system empty. Normally people would be walking through these gates, flooding the long hall between trains and destinations. The thing that strikes me more than the emptiness is the long tunnel leading to the exit. Well over 100 feet long the tunnel seems to go on forever, a feeling that mimics the endless period of the covid lockdown. It just felt as if it would never end, and now, looking at the tunnel I feel a sense of sadness, as if a year of my life was wasted, one that no matter how much I try to forget, I cannot.

2020-03-13

A, C, E Line 23rd Street

This video was taken on March 13, 2020 on my way home from my last day of in-person work at my gallery where I was employed at the time. I sent this video to my family who lived outside the city and the severity of the situation had not yet hit the town where they lived. Waiting on an empty subway platform after my workplace had shuttered its doors was surreal. I think many of us had a personal experience that we could identify as the moment when we were hit by the realization of how serious the pandemic was (and is).

2020-04-24

The Daily, "I Forgive You, New York"

I remember listening to this episode when it first aired during the peak of the pandemic. I am certain I am not alone in the ways this very raw and heartful lamentation of New York City when the city's fate was uncertain.

2020-09-24

Doctor Appointment, COVID- 19, and the MTA

During this Pandemic I have noticed how hard it is to travel in the city. In the beginning my doctor appointments were online and were more uncomfortable than being there in person. Going there in person is even more tricky since they can not let anyone go in to their offices .what is even worse is the traveling to the doctors appointments. I haven't really used the train in such a long time but since my doctors was in Manhattan I had to go on the train. Being in a compact space with people in a not really well ventilated area in a pandemic is not the safest things to do. I feel like COVID has caused me to have new anxiety because I have tried my best to stay away from people. Even before I got on the train my stomach was turning as if I was walking into new territory. I am Brooklyn born and have basically traveled by train everyday and now the idea of going into one was making me feel uneasy. I have also noticed that there were not a lot of people that were scared on the train while I tried to breathe through two masks people were not even wearing them properly . I have noticed that the MTA has put in the new penalty for people that do not wear a mask they will be fined $50, but to be honest it there was a few people in most of the subway stations that I was on with no masks and yet no fines were being placed. Not only was I scared of COVID but there has been a rise of violence in Stations and that scared me even more. Coronavirus has really changed the way that I view traveling when it comes to trains and buses and yet in New York City public transportation is the only way mode of transportation there is to get from one place to another effectively .

2020-09-16

The Daily Commute

I composed this piece for my Painting I class around the start of the pandemic when everything was still surreal. If I did a piece on COVID now, it would be entirely different. Nevertheless, I think the general tone of this piece shows how I and most likely many others have experienced the pandemic. I decided to place this scene on the Subway since New York City was the epicenter of COVID-19, and like COVID, the Subway is known as "the great equalizer". The tightness of space on a subway also gives the feeling of being trapped, which has been a pretty universal feeling during this time, not to mention the acute awareness of germs that one has both on the subway and during COVID. I was also inspired by the art that came from the Black Plague depicting 'witch' doctors and skeletons and wanted the figures I painted to mimic that sense of doom. Each figure represents a different feeling or character that has solidified itself in our COVID centered lives. I am sure many people can relate to the shag of hair bent over a computer as we navigate online classes and jobs, or to the sympathetic limp glove that essential workers wear everyday, or to the three characters that both warn and frighten us. I hope that at the end of this pandemic we can look back to what has come out of peoples' restlessness and suffering, and resolve to live in care of others to prevent future tragedies. #ForhamUniveristy

2020-03-10

The Last Time I was On the Subway

I took this picture the last day I rode the subway. I didn't know it would be the last day, and it looks like I was trying to get a shot of some weird bug on the A train sign. I've taken the train nearly every work day since 2010, but that's over--at least for now. I haven't been on a train on four months, and I don't know when I will again. I love the subway. I come from the midwest, so even during NYC's Summer of Hell, I still marvel at functioning mass transit. Being separate from the train is disorienting. The rhythm of my day is gone. The two hours of boredom, introspection, wrapped safely in a swaying metal tube. Gone. I'm not sure I will ever feel as safe as I used to on the subway, whenever I start riding again. I think about what the subway will become, if things stay as they are. If office workers don't need to commute, is the subway still the lifeblood of the city? What is New York, without a skeleton of cement tubes?

2020-04-10

Empty New York City

I think how this pandemic has managed to empty even the most crowded city in the states, and how we were all nervous about what future holds is something no one has ever experienced. Everyone will remember how the world stopped in 2020.

2020-04-26

A Memorial Is Never Small

A police station was situated a few years back in my neighborhood, which was a welcome addition as the otherwise quiet neighborhood had been experiencing low level crime and quality of life issues. For the first time in my life, I will be served multiple glimpses into a working police station as I would use the subway stop multiple times, albeit not during the covid lock down as I was staying indoors for an extended period. At one point I decided to 'break quarantine' and head into Manhattan where I came across this memorial to some officers who passed away due to covid-19. I was living in NYC during 9-11 and seen the various impromptu memorials to all those first responders; there had also been a previous memorial to an officer killed in a non-work related incident (I believe but I am not sure and only included to provide context to the memorial). This was a disquieting discovery because these officers were stricken by a virus that they would not have known where, when or how they were infected. While I was indoors all that time; even though I knew there were many essential workers who were being felled but I did not see their faces and names in such an up close yet quiet fashion. It was what their brother & sister officers could do and that is all that matters.

2020-01

Chinese Doctors in WuHan during the Covid-19

I want the world see the effort of those doctors, they shouldn't be nameless.

2020-06-04

How chinese people react after Covid 19 happened

This photo is about the situation of people in the subway. Everyone wears a mask and controls the social distance. This photo is very important to me because Covid 19 happened in my hometown. Through this photo, I I can understand that the people in my hometown pay attention to protection and attach great importance to personal safety, so that I can rest assured of the safety of my family’s life.

Photo of several people on a subway in masks.

2020-05-29

Reopening

Passengers riding on a subway as the world gradually reopens from quarantine.

04/02/2020

Kurt Boone New York City Covid 19 Photo Collection #3

Homeless person brings his personal belongings on empty subway car in New York City .

2020-04-06

Living Through Covid-19: 04/11/2020

This is a journal entry that specifically focuses on the transition to online learning and the practice of social distancing. *anonymous *This was intentionally a journal/diary entry therefore it was done through a word doc.

A person with bags walking in front of closed down buildings.

2020-04-24

Streets and Avenues / New York City (XX)

After college, and a year of vagabonding through Central and South America, I moved to the city forty-two years ago. I was drawn to New York, like many, by the energy and complexity of the city itself, and more specifically, the rich and endless theater found on its streets. While the array of cultural offerings has been a source of nourishment and pleasure, it is the streetlife that keeps me as excited as my first weeks here. What I love about New York is not what I know about the city, but how much I don't know. You cannot exhaust it as a subject, and from the start, I have made the city my primary interest and subject as a photographer. I always go out with a camera and am often mistaken as a tourist because of it. I take that as a compliment, given few can match the exalted state of excitement and awareness that a tourist experiences on a visit. When the Coronavirus hit and the staggered shutdown of the city went from a talked about possibility to a reality, I found myself inside my apartment looking out at the street below. At first, I made short trips to get necessities, then later added walks through Central Park, and now through the streets of Manhattan. If you think of a photograph as a piece of theater, with a stage set, lighting, cast, and choreography, the new version of the streetlife of New York is an eerie and fascinating show. The set and lighting is much the same, but the cast and choreography have wildly changed. Wandering through Midtown is like walking through an amusement park in the off-season. You experience the present colored by what you know it to be in season.

A social media post from West Jefferson Medical Center.

2020-03-27

Explore the Archives