This photograph was taken from the 14th floor of Belfer Hall at night. The image brings me back to a much simpler time. Being in quarantine and not being allowed to move around the world freely, I have noticed what I’m missing. Before the whole pandemic, I hated going to my late-night Bio Lab and watching the sun light fade away right before my eyes. This picture reminds me of how crazy, yet calming Washington Heights could be. It seems like everything is calm and there’s not much going on outside, but what I know is that behind the stillness of the picture, it is not that calm. Students are running to their next class, kids are going to get dinner with their friends, cars are honking, sirens are wailing, and so much more.

The photograph reminds me of Priscilla Ferguson’s commentary on the “flâneur,” which we read in class. She writes: “the Flâneur suggests the contradictions of the modern city, caught between the insistent mobility of the present and the visible weight of the past.” This sentence explains exactly what I feel now. In quarantine, we all feel the need to get out in the world and move around and see the craziness around us, but when we were in YU, we wanted to take a minute to ourselves and feel the calm and tranquility that was around us. Although there are no people directly in view of the camera, we can see the presence of people in the cars and the buildings with the lights on. This is what the picture helps me realize. When looking at it, it seems calm and relaxing to see our surroundings, but to know that the vitality of the crowd was still possible is what flânerie was all about. We now realize that what we had before quarantine was amazing but it is too late to go back and fully embrace everything around us. Most people now would do anything to have the option to have freedom to roam around. This shows the power of taking everything in and capturing every moment because you don’t know when the next one will be.