New York
The Artifacts of New York’s Pandemic Era
The vintage aura of Sevilla Restaurant — the servers in bow ties, the leather booths, the glow of lanterns — reflects a bygone era of the West Village in Manhattan, where the establishment was founded almost a century ago.
But alongside those period details, there is one dissonant design element that evokes a far more recent moment in time: clear plastic screens dividing the restaurant’s rear tables.
“The partitions came up during the pandemic,” said Miguel Lloves, 47, whose family took over the business in the 1960s. “I did ask my dad if we’d want to take them down. He didn’t let me. Somehow, in his mind, he thinks it’s going to come back.”
Scan your eyes around New York City, and you’ll spot them everywhere, these artifacts of the pandemic, lingering through intent or indifference.
These remnants of that anxious time now serve as some of the only public reminders of those deadly years.
Weathered signs mandating mask use, QR codes posted around restaurant tabletops, faded social distancing stickers plastered on the ground — taken together, they form an urban fossil record of a place that has otherwise largely moved on.
“Forget removing the gum on the sidewalk,” said Patrick Willingham, the executive director of the Public Theater in Manhattan. “The stickers are permanent. They’ll never get them off the ground.”
Take a walk through the Queens neighborhoods surrounding Elmhurst Hospital — the epicenter of the city’s pandemic response — where a “Stop the Spread” sign still hangs prominently near the entrance of the emergency room.
At Hector Escobar Hair Studio, a salon nearby on 37th Avenue, a “Certificate of Disinfection” is centrally displayed on the door. To the south, at Fay Da, a Chinese bakery on Broadway, an “Affirmation of Compliance With Workplace Vaccination Requirements” is posted on the storefront glass. And at Khao Kang, a Thai restaurant on Woodside Avenue, plump bottles of Purell rest on each of the six dining tables inside.
“I think it’s a good reminder for people,” said Joe Secanky, a nurse from Milwaukee, who pumped sanitizer onto his hands one recent afternoon before sharing a fiery spread of food with his wife, Edna.
Like the bottles of sanitizer, certain remnants of the pandemic have maintained some utility in the present day.
Mighty Oak Roasters, in Astoria, Queens, is one of many businesses around the city that has continued to operate a sidewalk window for takeout orders.
“It’s great for people with dogs or strollers and people who ride their bikes,” said Peter Moses, a co-founder of the coffee shop, which keeps a small sign out front telling customers that masks are still appreciated. (At least one staffer, Mr. Moses said, is immunocompromised.)
New Yorkers can also unearth traces of the pandemic in their homes. Alongside the typical detritus — stacks of Covid tests, boxes of gloves, Pelotons — are often things imbued with more meaning.
Mr. Moses, for example, has kept a half-used bottle of hand sanitizer from his friends’ wedding in 2021 on a living room shelf. Its label has a timely message: “Share love, not germs.” He thought it was an object worth remembering.
Likewise, some New Yorkers have tried to turn the vestiges of Covid into something beautiful.
Those ordering from the bar these days at Night of Joy, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, face a decorative latticework spanning the length of the counter. During the height of the pandemic, the structure had a huge plastic sheet stretched across it.
“I agonized for weeks back then about how to make the most beautiful sneeze guard I could,” said Jen Armstrong, the owner of the bar.
With the help of a local artist, Alexander Barton, she realized her vision, purchasing gardening trellises made of willow from Home Depot and painting them gold.
As the worst of the pandemic wound down, Ms. Armstrong removed the plastic sheets, but kept the barriers. She realized they had become a part of her bar’s aesthetic and a conversation starter. She had received compliments from customers.
And though the trellises have worn down over the years — “Drunk people like to touch fragile things,” she said — she would now rather renovate or replace them than remove them altogether.
“It became a happy accident,” she said. “I’m proud of myself for taking such a horrible object and making it into something that, you know, means something else.”
The most visible traces of the pandemic across the city, though, may be the masks that still dangle from some peoples’ faces.
The days of mandates and widespread usage are, of course, long over. A sign that remains posted near the entrance of the subway at 40th Street and Broadway in Manhattan — “Face coverings are required” — goes entirely ignored by the throngs of riders who pass by each day.
And yet it has remained relatively common to see a few people wearing masks in a crowded train car or indoor space — a practice that was basically nonexistent in the city before the pandemic, aside from the occasional tourist.
A number of the city’s performance spaces — including the Public Theater, where Mr. Willingham is the executive director — have even continued to offer occasional shows where masks are required. And when they are not, Mr. Willingham said, there are still always some mask users in the audience.
“It’s become part of the landscape,” he said.
They’ve become a subtle part of the landscape, too, at Sevilla Restaurant.
Since the end of the pandemic, the restaurant’s in-house guitar player, a musician in his 70s, has continued wearing his mask while singing songs around the dining room.
He does it for his safety, Mr. Lloves said, but it has caused occasional displeasure among certain outspoken guests.
“He’s a constant reminder, and some people don’t like that,” Mr. Lloves said. “I think it disturbs them. They almost don’t want to be reminded. They’d rather not think about it.”
new video loaded: Protesters Clash with Federal Agents Outside ICE Detention Center in New Jersey
transcript
transcript
Protesters Clash with Federal Agents Outside ICE Detention Center in New Jersey
Protesters and immigration agents clashed outside Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, where activists have gathered for days to denounce conditions inside.
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“Get back!” “Get back, get back, get back, get back, get back!” [chanting] “ICE, ICE has got to go. Hey, hey, ho, ho.” “We’ve heard repeatedly about these horror stories of pregnant women not getting access to care, of people with injuries not being treated. People shouldn’t have to starve themselves to make their dignity known.” “Down, down with the degradation.” “Down, down with the degradation.”
By Christina Kelso
May 28, 2026
How can people possibly afford to live in one of the most expensive cities on the planet? It’s a question New Yorkers hear a lot, often delivered with a mix of awe, pity and confusion.
We surveyed hundreds of New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save. We found that many people — rich, poor or somewhere in between — live life as a series of small calculations that add up to one big question: What makes living in New York worth it?
Ellen Hagan grew up in a small town in Kentucky, and moved to New York City as quickly as she could after she graduated from college. She arrived a few weeks before Sept. 11, and tried to get her bearings in a city turned upside down.
She found a group of fellow young artists and writers who wanted to take advantage of everything they could in the city, on very limited budgets. They went to poetry readings and dance parties, and rented tiny apartments in the East Village.
All the while, Ms. Hagan was diligent about saving money, even when she had very little of it.
“I didn’t know what I was saving for, but I knew I wasn’t going to have a job that would give me a pension,” she said. “I wanted to make enough money to live the New York existence I was dreaming of.”
Twenty-five years later, Ms. Hagan and her husband, David Flores, whom she started dating in her early years in New York, have much more money than they used to. Still, they feel more anxious about money than they hoped they would at this point in their lives.
The couple both work at DreamYard, a Bronx arts nonprofit. Last year, they made $178,135 there collectively, with Ms. Hagan, 47, directing the poetry and theater programs, and Mr. Flores, also 47, serving as the head of visual art and design.
They typically bring in another $40,000 to $60,000 a year through their freelance work. Mr. Flores is an adjunct professor, a photographer and a filmmaker, and Ms. Hagan teaches at a graduate writing program and writes books and poetry. They try to set aside about 15 percent of their income each year to grow their savings.
The couple live in Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan with their two daughters, who are 12 and 15.
Homeownership Doesn’t Solve Everything
As a young couple, Ms. Hagan and Mr. Flores lived in a 400-square-foot East Village rental. When their rent started to tick up, Ms. Hagan began looking for a place to buy, seeing homeownership as a buoy that would all but guarantee a secure financial life in New York.
Sixteen years ago, the couple found a perfect apartment in Washington Heights and scrambled to cobble together a down payment. They pooled their savings to put a 15 percent down payment on the $335,000 home. Once they closed, they were left with only a few hundred dollars in savings, but were thrilled and relieved.
“I had this sense that when you buy, you’re set in New York City,” Ms. Hagan said.
The reality, she has found, is more complicated.
The couple’s mortgage payment is $1,300 a month, and their maintenance fees keep rising, partially as a result of a new local law that requires increased inspections and repairs for buildings. Local Law 11 boosted their maintenance by $462 a month, at least temporarily, to about $1,900 total. And when the building’s management installed a new security system, each unit had to chip in $95 a month for three months.
Ms. Hagan loves the apartment, but she worries that they may eventually be priced out of their neighborhood.
“This building isn’t going to be for us at some point,” she said. “This feels like, uh oh, they’re imagining people who have much higher incomes than we do.”
Keeping the Kids Busy
Ms. Hagan and Mr. Flores, who each maintain packed calendars, have encouraged their daughters to adopt the same approach to city living.
“I’m definitely a proponent of, let’s fill your schedule and see what you love,” Ms. Hagan said.
The girls’ public school offers free debate and band classes before and after school, and they’ll appear this spring in the school’s productions of “Annie” and “The Addams Family.”
The girls are also enrolled in a free theater academy at the People’s Theatre and writing workshops at Uptown Stories, which has a pay-what-you-can system. Ms. Hagan and Mr. Flores typically pay the full tuition, which is $800 for each 12-week session, and donate about $2,500 a year to the organizations their daughters are part of.
The couple’s older daughter, Araceli, who wants to be both a writer and a doctor, is enrolled in a medical training program for middle and high school students. She made $2,500 for completing an internship at a cardiothoracic intensive care unit last summer.
Their younger daughter, Miriam, is going to a Y.M.C.A. camp this summer, which costs $2,600 for two weeks.
Ms. Hagan and Mr. Flores spent about $500 total on holiday gifts for both girls, and the couple doles out their daughters’ weekly allowances in two installments: $25 on Mondays and $25 on Fridays.
They shook their heads when Miriam, who is known as the most stylish member of the family, came home one day wearing a Dr Pepper T-shirt she’d bought at Target.
“We were like, ‘What are you doing with your money?’” Ms. Hagan said.
The Fun Stuff
The extra income from the couple’s freelance work allows the family to splurge on theater, vacations, books and memberships at the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Sometimes, Ms. Hagan and Mr. Flores work together. A few years ago, they sold a young adult novel called “Tell Me Every Lie” they had co-written for a $35,000 advance, some of which went to their agent.
Every little bit helps. The family is spending a weekend on Long Beach Island in New Jersey this summer, which will cost about $3,500. That price tag includes a hotel room big enough for four.
The family typically travels twice a year to Kentucky, where both Ms. Hagan and Mr. Flores are from, and where the couple co-owns a home in Louisville with Mr. Flores’s parents. They put $40,000 down and spend about $12,000 annually on expenses related to the home.
The family was hoping to travel to the Philippines this year, where Mr. Flores’s father is from, but they realized it could cost as much as $15,000. The trip is now on hold indefinitely.
They spend about $700 a month on groceries from nearby supermarkets, and occasionally order grocery deliveries from FreshDirect.
Every Wednesday, when the girls come home late from theater class, someone picks up dinner at the nearby halal truck or the Dominican restaurant Malecon, which usually runs about $60.
Dinner out as a family of four can easily cost $200, so Ms. Hagan and Mr. Flores typically eat at restaurants just once or twice a month. The other night, the whole family was hungry and craved Italian food from a favorite upscale spot nearby.
They balked, and walked around the corner to a diner instead. The meal was $120, all in.
We are talking to New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save.
Gov. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, a Democrat who has clashed with the Trump administration over immigration policies, joined protests outside a detention center in Newark on Monday in support of detainees participating in a hunger strike.
Ms. Sherrill heard from family members of detainees, who have complained about rotten and spoiled food and inadequate medical care at Delaney Hall. Dozens of protesters waved signs, banged on drums, and chanted “Free Them All!” The governor told the crowd she had requested access but was denied.
“No matter what your immigration status is, you shouldn’t be treated with anything less than dignity in this country,” said Ms. Sherrill, who was dressed in a T-shirt, jeans, and blue-gray jacket on the Memorial Day holiday. At one point, she rested her hand on the shoulder of a crying relative and smoothed the hair of an upset child.
After the governor left, the scene worsened outside the detention facility. A tense standoff erupted between Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and protesters who blocked an entrance; the agents responded by firing pepper balls and spray at the protesters. Senator Andy Kim, who was trying to de-escalate the situation, was among those affected.
On Monday, the governor and other elected officials, including Mayor Ras J. Baraka of Newark, appeared outside Delaney Hall amid growing concerns over the hunger strike, which started on Friday inside the gray, cinder-block building enclosed by a high chain link fence topped with razor wire.
Immigration advocates have rallied outside Delaney Hall since Friday. Detainees said they would go on a hunger and labor strike while calling for an investigation of the detention center and its operations and for Ms. Sherrill to visit to discuss protections from ICE. Hundreds of detainees were participating, one protester told Ms. Sherrill.
The governor said in a statement on Sunday that she had contacted ICE to gain access to the detention center and was working to monitor the situation and “do what’s necessary to ensure humane conditions.”
At Monday’s protest, some protesters shouted in Ms. Sherrill’s face to criticize her for not showing up earlier in the weekend, like other elected officials had.
Representative Rob Menendez of New Jersey had arrived at 8 p.m. on Sunday and stayed all night until he was allowed into the center on Monday morning. Mr. Menendez said that he had spoken to some of the detainees inside Delaney Hall, including a young woman who just wanted to go to her high school graduation, a pregnant woman who was trying to get medical care, and a man who showed him a carton of milk that had gone rancid.
“I heard just desperation from so many people in there,” Mr. Menendez said afterward.
Angela Martinez told Ms. Sherrill that her cousin, Bolivar Bueno, 65, has diabetes and that she hasn’t been able to speak to him to make sure he is getting medication. “We don’t know what’s going on,” she told the governor.
Afterward, Ms. Martinez said, “I want for her to help me out.”
Ms. Sherrill left after about an hour, around 11:30 a.m., as some demonstrators jeered at her. Her security had to clear the road of a couple people who tried to stop her S.U.V. from leaving.
A few hours later, a convoy of ICE vehicles approached another entrance on the south side of Delaney Hall. Protesters, who had rallied at the north entrance in the morning, ran over to sit down in front of the vehicles. Many said they feared that the detainees on hunger strike inside would be transferred to other facilities.
ICE agents — most of whom were wearing face masks — pushed and shoved the protesters out of the way, even dragging one young man by a kaffiyeh around his neck. As the protesters chanted “Trump Has To Go,” they linked arms and faced the ICE agents.
The standoff prevented anyone from leaving through the south entrance. Soon after, a military-style vehicle moved toward that entrance, with a man on top holding a firearm pointed at demonstrators.
Senator Kim, Democrat of New Jersey, who had been allowed inside Delaney Hall, came out during the confrontation and walked over to support the protesters. Soon afterward, the ICE agents and military vehicles backed away from the entrance and slightly retreated toward to the detention center, but the standoff continued.
“They provoked it, they brought that tank over,” Mr. Kim said. “It’s getting worse and worse here.”
The senator said he was working to “de-escalate” the standoff through negotiations with federal officials and would push for families to be allowed to visit detainees as early as Tuesday. “I’m going to keep at it,” he said.
Not long after, the standoff escalated with ICE agents using pepper balls and mace on the crowd.
It’s not the first time Delaney Hall has faced protests. In June 2025, four men escaped from the detention center after days of unrest over meager and sporadic meals and overcrowding that forced some detainees to sleep on the floor. Detainees had smashed windows, doors and security cameras.
And Mr. Baraka, the Newark mayor, was arrested in May 2025 during a clash with federal agents outside its gates last year.
Dakota Santiago contributed reporting.
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