City & County 11: Coronavirus Cities Dispatch #3 Walking on empty streets
Looking southwest towards Kendall Square from the base of Prospect Hill in Somerville. April 1.
Six or so weeks into coronavirus life, and the motivation to keep a daily journal has faded. It took at least two weeks to even realize I had forgotten to log a journal entry, so I suppose that practice has faded. Long walks have continued, as often as possible, as has photography on those walks, to document the relatively empty streets of Somerville and Cambridge. We’ve had a drawn out early spring, with lots of rain and a late snowstorm last weekend, which offered an opportunity to capture some images of snowfall on flowers. This newsletter is written by Alan Wiig, a Professor of Urban Planning and Community Development at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. You can subscribe or unsubscribe at the bottom of this page.
Union Square, Somerville. April 1.
My last journal entry was on Wednesday April 9th, noting:
Urban life changed again on Monday: the Mayor of Boston announced a 9pm to 6am curfew (link to a well-done photo essay of Boston under curfew), followed by a firm reminder to limit social gatherings and an encouragement to wear a mask while out in public. (While I live in Somerville and not Boston, the decisions of the region’s primary city government typically guide the implementation of similar policies in the adjacent cities). So we enter masked urbanism, with all of the attendant shifting social norms. Whereas previously, the masked person was the outlier, now they are the opposite.
Masks are certainly common now: it is the official recommendation from the city to wear one whenever you leave the house (link). They are mandatory to enter the nearby grocery store. It is an anomaly to see someone on the street without one.
Adjacent to the railroad tracks, off Washington Street in Somerville. April 1.
In addition to the normalization of the mask, my experience of space and time has transformed completely. The spaces of daily life has shrunk into the collection of rooms we inhabit, with the outer-perimeter expanding to those daily walks, but never deviating into an unfamilar location. Distance is demarcated in six feet increments for passing on the street or in a grocery. Time is now marked in one hour increments of video meetings on Zoom or otherwise, sunrise and sunset glimpsed through window blinds, the two-week intervals between grocery shopping outings, and the changing of seasons from winter into spring. Massachusetts is still three or four or more weeks from the possibility of a gradual re-opening. For the foreseeable future, life remains a jumble of stress, boredom, and attempts at distraction, of which walking remains the absolute best way to pass a hour or two. As eastern Massachusetts transitions toward summer, I imagine the walks will occur much earlier in the morning, or at sunset. The blooms and unfurling leaves will transition to shades of green, and the overcast skies interspersed with the clean blues of a sunny day will shift to the humid haze and sticky heat of New England in July.
Photos follow from post-breakfast walks in late March through mid-April follow, mostly of houses with flowering trees in their front yards, and some street scenes. The city is so still, even in the mid-mornings when most of these were taken. A few passerby, an occasional bus, but most cars are stationary, and most people inside.
Winter Hill, Somerville. April 9.
Medford Street, Somerville. April 9.
Greenville Street, Somerville, looking east. April 11.
Bryant Street, Cambridge, near Harvard University. April 18.
Beacon Street, Somerville. April 18.