Empty for Easter: Manhattan landmarks
had few visitors amid the pandemic
City landmarks, incuding churches, were deserted on Easter
Sunday because of Covid-19 crisis. St. PatrickÕs Cathedral
broadcasted their Easter Sunday services, so the church was
empty, except for a few people
BY TODD MAISEL
There were a few people
ready to bring some cheer
to New Yorkers in the
midst of the COVID-19 outbreak,
some of whom would’ve normally
attended church on Easter Sunday.
Instead, some showed up
dressed in holiday costumes while
maintaining social distancing and
wearing masks.
Most churches were livestreaming
their Easter Sunday
Masses for their regular parishioners
– but a few people were
outside of St. Patrick’s Cathedral
wearing their Easter best, or just
stopping by to say a silent prayer.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan
celebrated Easter Mass at St. Patrick’s
in the morning; the service
PHOTOS BY TODD MAISEL
was broadcast on WPIX-TV and
streamed on YouTube.
During his homily, Dolan
compared the emptiness of New
York to the emptiness of the tomb
of the risen Christ celebrated on
Easter.
“I bring all this up because
we hear plenty about emptiness
these days, don’t we, thanks to
the dreaded pandemic,” Dolan
said, noting the empty dinner
tables across New York City for
Easter and Passover; empty roads,
businesses, schools and bank accounts;
and the empty chairs of
those who died of coronavirus.
“I ask, this paschal morning:
Could the empty tomb of Easter
be a metaphor for our world
and our lives?” the cardinal
continued. “Emptiness might be
Alan and Robert, who are regulars to the Easter parade that
was canceled this year due to the pandemic, but decided to
come by anyway today out of tradition.
a blessing, not a curse, as the God
of the living fi lls us with light,
meaning, resolve, hope and life.”
Dolan hinted that the empty
voids created by the pandemic
gives New Yorkers an opportunity
for personal and spiritual renewal
of life.
Despite the restrictions in
place, some came to the cathedral
anyway, with most saying it was
“unbelievable that there was no
mass on Easter.”
“I came to support the Easter
Parade and what that parade
means to everyone – you have to
believe that things will get better,”
said Antonio Oliveri of Manhattan,
an immigrant from Brazil. He
stood on Fifth Avenue near the
church while wearing an Easter
Bunny suit and a Bugs Bunny
mask covered, appropriately, with
a mask and rubber gloves.
“There is so much sadness, I
just want to make people feel a
little better,” Oliveri said as he
waved to the occasional car that
drove past on normally busy Fifth
Avenue.
Others stopped to say a silent
prayer in front of the cathedral, or
left potted tulips left at the center
doors under the sign waving off
Catholics from Mass.
“I said a prayer for the world,”
said one woman who wouldn’t
give her name after she knelt in
front of the church steps for a moment.
“We
have the ability
to lead in
the scientific
r e a lm
b e -
cause God gave us that blessing.
Our brilliant people will fi gure
this out with God’s help.”
At nearby Times Square, a
warm Sunday afternoon would
have otherwise been wall-to-wall
with people. It was a ghost town
this Sunday.
Times Square was deserted on April 12, 2020.
One man sat nearby and sipped
a soda in the Square where chairs
and tables had been removed.
“I just took a stroll through
the area, got myself something to
drink – I just couldn’t sit home
again,” said Martin Miller of
Hell’s Kitchen. “I can’t believe
how empty it is here.”
Downtown at the 9/11 Memorial,
security offi cers watched
a roped off the twin memorial
waterfalls, shut down since the
shelter in place request went out
to the public.
A few fl owers sat on the memorial,
some families visit the site every
Easter to honor the memory of
their loved ones. Security offi cers
volunteered to put the fl owers on
the names, but were not allowed
to let them approach.
Two volunteers at the Bellevue
Morgue, Dan and Farro — who
wouldn’t give their last names
— were in from Dallas and were
visiting the 9/11 Memorial for
Easter. Both have been helping
the city deal with the bodies
that have been piling up at the
hospitals.
Dan and Farro were here after
the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks,
volunteering to help with
the numerous dead. They decided
Sunday to visit the memorial, the
fi rst time they had been here since
that fateful day, on one of their
few breaks.
“We haven’t been here since
that day and we wanted to come
down and pay respects,” said
Farro, an emergency management
specialists working with her husband,
a mortician on the numerous
deaths from COVID-19. “We
just wanted to pay our respects
and take a look after not having
been back here since then. It’s a
great city and we are here to support
you.”
With additional reporting by
Robert Pozarycki
At the 9/11 memorial, visitors were not permitted to approach
the waterfalls which were turned off - Dan and Farro could
only look from afar.
Schneps Media April 16,2020 13