Items

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  2020-02-12

  COVID-19 Reflection: Local Businesses

  The COVID-19 pandemic obviously played a major role in everyone’s life around the world. My life, the lives of those around me, and my neighborhood has drastically changed from when the pre-pandemic to today. My daily life including my school, work, and social life have completely changed. One thing I saw greatly affected by the pandemic were businesses. Many small, local businesses everywhere struggled with regulations and inability to afford rent, resources, and employees. While some online businesses as well as larger corporations like Amazon have thrived due to the pandemic. I live in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and my neighborhood is full of many restaurants, bars, and local businesses. During the pandemic I saw many businesses struggle and even permanently close due to the pandemic and the government’s COVID regulations. I experienced this personally at my job. For about 8 months prior to the start of the pandemic I worked as a barista at a coffee shop. I remember first hearing about this unknown virus while working but had no idea how much it would end up affecting the store. Not even two weeks later I found out my job had to temporarily close, just like most other restaurants and businesses in New York City. The coffee shop, along with the two other locations the owner had in Bay Ridge, ended up permanently closing. He no longer runs this business at all. Luckily I was able to receive unemployment benefits for a while due to losing my job there. As well as this business, I saw many businesses I know struggle. A health food store called Appletree right down my block, which my family and I have been going to since I was born, struggled greatly with affording rent and resources due to their loss in sales during the pandemic. A few months ago they also permanently closed. I remember seeing the barber shop by my house, which is normally full of people, always empty with no customers. It was upsetting to see local businesses like these forced to close when many of these business owners and employees rely on their sales to support themselves and their families. I also remember many restaurants struggling with regulations that were put into place once they were allowed to open. I saw local restaurants receiving extreme fines and forced to close or not serve alcohol due to their issues with the COVID regulations. I think many restaurant owners could not afford to stay open if they followed all strict regulations, but this ended up hurting them even before due to the fines and tickets they received. I now see my neighborhood much more busy and many businesses that did survive the pandemic and are somewhat flourishing now. This is nice to see and for the sake of these business owners, I hope it remains this way.
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  2020-05-07

  Screen Grab English 7800 Spring 2020

  This screenshot shows three students and their instructor in a moment of silliness on Zoom, where we attempted and mostly succeeded at engaging in rigorous academic work while keeping one another sane and grounded.
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  2020-10-11

  The Justice for George Floyd Information Map

  As a librarian who works alot with maps, I am very impressed with this site: Justice for George Floyd. This is a way for anyone who wants to protest in the greater NYC area to keep track of upcoming and past events. You can also sign up and add your own events, which will then appear with a description link and an appropriate protesting icon on the map.