During the COVID19 lockdown, I came across this character wandering along Thompson Street in Soho, smoking his cigar through a modified mask.
“I do it to make laugh”, he told me, and happily posed for a photograph on a chilly April morning.
The New York lockdown was absolute, rapid and serious. All businesses closed except for food - retail or delivery, alcohol, and chemists. Traffic dropped by 90% overnight. Noise and vehicle pollution was swiftly replaced by clear air and bird song. Despite a substantial American bailout package for businesses, at least 26 million have registered unemployed in the last five weeks.
