Quote of the Day (Saul Bellow, on a ‘Great, Great Crowd’ Thronging Midcentury Broadway)

“On Broadway it was still bright afternoon and the gassy air was almost motionless under the leaden spokes of sunlight, and sawdust footprints lay about the doorways of butcher shops and fruit stores. And the great, great crowd, the inexhaustible current of millions of every race and kind pouring out, pressing round, of every race and genius, possessors of every human secret, antique and future, in every face the refinement of one particular motive or essence - I labor, I spend, I strive, I design, I love, I cling, I uphold, I give way, I envy, I long, I scorn, I die, I hide, I want. Faster, much faster than any man could make the tally.”— American novelist Saul Bellow (1915-2005), Seize the Day (1956)

Photo of the Day: Prospect Park, Brooklyn—Before Social Distancing

I took this photo on a sublimely sunny Sunday in May six years ago. But there is so little distinctive about the clothing and accessories of these lawn loungers that it could have been taken any time in the last 20 to 30 years.

Now, amid the scourge of the coronavirus, just how much—even whether—people should be out and about in parks in such throngs on a beautiful day is a fraught one. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was so annoyed by a photo of the park’s farmers market that he had “MISTAKE” written all over it. On Friday, the city reacted by announcing it would keep parks open but by ban team sports, even as it strongly urged social distancing. 

We shall see if this is tightened further, or if enough of a backlash develops against restrictions that even this relatively understandable one on team sports is rescinded.