The Artifacts of New York's Pandemic Era

New York Times

12-03-2025

The vintage aura of Sevilla Restaurant — the servers in bow ties, the leather booths, the glow of lanterns — reflects a bygone era of the West Village in Manhattan, where the establishment was founded almost a century ago.
But alongside those period details, there is one dissonant design element that evokes a far more recent moment in time: clear plastic screens dividing the restaurant's rear tables.
'The partitions came up during the pandemic,' said Miguel Lloves, 47, whose family took over the business in the 1960s. 'I did ask my dad if we'd want to take them down. He didn't let me. Somehow, in his mind, he thinks it's going to come back.'
Scan your eyes around New York City, and you'll spot them everywhere, these artifacts of the pandemic, lingering through intent or indifference.
These remnants of that anxious time now serve as some of the only public reminders of those deadly years.
Weathered signs mandating mask use, QR codes posted around restaurant tabletops, faded social distancing stickers plastered on the ground — taken together, they form an urban fossil record of a place that has otherwise largely moved on.
'Forget removing the gum on the sidewalk,' said Patrick Willingham, the executive director of the Public Theater in Manhattan. 'The stickers are permanent. They'll never get them off the ground.'
Take a walk through the Queens neighborhoods surrounding Elmhurst Hospital — the epicenter of the city's pandemic response — where a 'Stop the Spread' sign still hangs prominently near the entrance of the emergency room.
At Hector Escobar Hair Studio, a salon nearby on 37th Avenue, a 'Certificate of Disinfection' is centrally displayed on the door. To the south, at Fay Da, a Chinese bakery on Broadway, an 'Affirmation of Compliance With Workplace Vaccination Requirements' is posted on the storefront glass. And at Khao Kang, a Thai restaurant on Woodside Avenue, plump bottles of Purell rest on each of the six dining tables inside.
'I think it's a good reminder for people,' said Joe Secanky, a nurse from Milwaukee, who pumped sanitizer onto his hands one recent afternoon before sharing a fiery spread of food with his wife, Edna.
Like the bottles of sanitizer, certain remnants of the pandemic have maintained some utility in the present day.
Mighty Oak Roasters, in Astoria, Queens, is one of many businesses around the city that has continued to operate a sidewalk window for takeout orders.
'It's great for people with dogs or strollers and people who ride their bikes,' said Peter Moses, a co-founder of the coffee shop, which keeps a small sign out front telling customers that masks are still appreciated. (At least one staffer, Mr. Moses said, is immunocompromised.)
New Yorkers can also unearth traces of the pandemic in their homes. Alongside the typical detritus — stacks of Covid tests, boxes of gloves, Pelotons — are often things imbued with more meaning.
Mr. Moses, for example, has kept a half-used bottle of hand sanitizer from his friends' wedding in 2021 on a living room shelf. Its label has a timely message: 'Share love, not germs.' He thought it was an object worth remembering.
Likewise, some New Yorkers have tried to turn the vestiges of Covid into something beautiful.
Those ordering from the bar these days at Night of Joy, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, face a decorative latticework spanning the length of the counter. During the height of the pandemic, the structure had a huge plastic sheet stretched across it.
'I agonized for weeks back then about how to make the most beautiful sneeze guard I could,' said Jen Armstrong, the owner of the bar.
With the help of a local artist, Alexander Barton, she realized her vision, purchasing gardening trellises made of willow from Home Depot and painting them gold.
As the worst of the pandemic wound down, Ms. Armstrong removed the plastic sheets, but kept the barriers. She realized they had become a part of her bar's aesthetic and a conversation starter. She had received compliments from customers.
And though the trellises have worn down over the years — 'Drunk people like to touch fragile things,' she said — she would now rather renovate or replace them than remove them altogether.
'It became a happy accident,' she said. 'I'm proud of myself for taking such a horrible object and making it into something that, you know, means something else.'
The most visible traces of the pandemic across the city, though, may be the masks that still dangle from some peoples' faces.
The days of mandates and widespread usage are, of course, long over. A sign that remains posted near the entrance of the subway at 40th Street and Broadway in Manhattan — 'Face coverings are required' — goes entirely ignored by the throngs of riders who pass by each day.
And yet it has remained relatively common to see a few people wearing masks in a crowded train car or indoor space — a practice that was basically nonexistent in the city before the pandemic, aside from the occasional tourist.
A number of the city's performance spaces — including the Public Theater, where Mr. Willingham is the executive director — have even continued to offer occasional shows where masks are required. And when they are not, Mr. Willingham said, there are still always some mask users in the audience.
'It's become part of the landscape,' he said.
They've become a subtle part of the landscape, too, at Sevilla Restaurant.
Since the end of the pandemic, the restaurant's in-house guitar player, a musician in his 70s, has continued wearing his mask while singing songs around the dining room.
He does it for his safety, Mr. Lloves said, but it has caused occasional displeasure among certain outspoken guests.
'He's a constant reminder, and some people don't like that,' Mr. Lloves said. 'I think it disturbs them. They almost don't want to be reminded. They'd rather not think about it.'