A Space for Gathering During a Time of Solitude in Images

I always had a plan. I had a plan for when my plan didn’t go as planned. When I knew I needed a break, I planned to not have a plan for a certain amount of time or until I got bored. This is the control I had in my life, until March 2020. Like most, I had a difficult time spending time alone inside. I would go days without going outside to avoid the feeling of forcing myself to feel better while breaking up my days of isolation. By August 2020, I accepted that going outside to walk around my neighborhood was the only thing I could control.

For the next five months, I walked around the Financial District almost every day with my camera and observed how people spent their time during the pandemic. It felt like overnight the unbearable heat rolled into the crisp coolness of a new season and new faces passed in and out. Being in the presence of others and watching them relax, laugh and connect brought me joy in a depressing time.

In particular, the piers were where I saw people gather the most. They joined friends, family and partners to share a meal, chat, nap or play with their dogs. The easiness of the water flowing up the East River behind them reminded me that we will always find space for what brings us comfort while we go through the motions of life. The motions we cannot control.

I wondered if these people were also coming up with ways to keep consistency in their life, if they were planners or non-planners and if they were embracing these moments spent relaxing when they had no where else to be. As a journalist, these are questions I would ask a stranger, but the pandemic caused anxiety and panic to rise in me at the thought of invading a someone else’s space. My brain was overwhelmed with “What is the right way to do it?” So I sat back, held up my camera and thought up stories of my own.

I imagined these women were joining for the first times in months. Old friends from college smoking and catching up on their latest dating app stories or the new hobbies they have picked up. They all ventured out into different career paths, maybe finance, environmental studies and jewelry design. Yet they all shared a moment over their memories and the year they share in common.

I sensed this pair was a couple. They took up weekly bike riding to stay busy and active. They lived with each other and spent every second together in their pandemic life, so this seemed like a good time to sit in silence on their phones. This is the comfort they needed in this moment, sharing each other’s presence while connecting with the outside world.

The ferry served as a getaway with all the people watching I enjoyed at the piers, but from a chosen seat as others walked on and off. I started to opt for the ferry as a way to commute over the subway, or hopped on it to a random destination and back when I had a lot of time to take up.

Some looked like they were traveling to the beach or another borough, while others looked as though they were leaving or heading to work in a medical uniform or suit. We were all living different lives in a time of universal despair, connected by our thoughts of what will happen next.