UC Recap – June 15th – June 20th
June 15 – June 20
Uptown Love in the Time of Coronavirus: The Reopening
The Reopening. Sound likes the title of a horror film. In fact, it feels like one as well. Don’t get me wrong, I experienced sheer ecstatic joy this week when I had my first meal at a restaurant in over 3 months. It felt almost transcendent to sit outside and enjoy a meal Uptown but I could not help but feel a tinge of fear and foreboding.
I also had my first haircut this week in what feels like an eternity and I was beside myself with elation from just sitting in that barber chair and bantering with my barber of almost 2 decades. Dimelo Fatuile! But I digress. I never realized how much I enjoyed getting a haircut while bachata music blares in the background. The little things we once took for granted have been elevated to something else completely.
But still, if we care to admit it and at the risk of coming off as a Debbie Downer, something is off. First of all, Trump is still president. Secondly, Trump is still President. The Tyrant has moved on from the pandemic and has gone back to the deadly fabrication that the virus will simply vanish. It won’t.
The nation’s top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, (remember him?), has stated quite matter-of-factly that we could be in for a horrible fall season with both coronavirus and the flu delivering a one-two punch to this country that has endured so much during the reign of Tyrant Trump. Plague stalks the land, but some folks do not even believe that it exists. Sad to say but wearing a mask or not wearing a mask has become a political statement.
So, while New York and the tri-state area are finally getting back to some sort of normalcy with rapidly declining cases of corona, the rest of the country is experiencing an exponential explosion of the malady.
We may be reopening but I can’t help that nagging feeling that things have changed for good and the good old days are not coming back. In fact, while I am somewhat enjoying the reopening, I have a sinking suspicion that the sequel of this real-life horror film, The Reclosing, is just around the corner.
Pa’lante, Siempre Pa’lante!
Keep checking us out at www.uptowncollective.com.
Led Black
Editor-in-Chief
The Uptown Collective
The UC’s mission is to become “the” definitive, transformative and community-based force impacting the arts, culture, business and New York City’s overall perception of Upper Manhattan. Its objective is to reset, reboot and positively redefine Uptown’s artistic, political, cultural and business spheres via the online space as well the collective’s initiatives and functions.
