The shutdown coincided with the multi-million dollar commitment my company made to its new facility. The notion of zero revenue was unfathomable and more terrifying than the health threat, which at first felt distant and overblown. I remember being out for dinner on March 12^th with two colleagues, in a state of complete naivete. It would be my last in-restaurant meal for a long time. 

We prepared for a three-month maximum hiatus. Before we could go off-line, the company began to participate in emergency food relief efforts. It was salvation on every level. The lights stayed on, daily heroes stood out leading the unimaginable work effort of preparing and delivering tens of thousands of meals door-to-door, and the need to be proactive and productive was fulfilled many times over.  

There are three audio memories I will never forget. The sound of beautiful city birdsong at 4 am each morning; the sound of my sneakered footsteps along the city streets late at night; and the constant sound of ambulance sirens racing past my apartment building, heading to Mt. Sinai Hospital. 

There are certain dates I will never forget. They are seared in my memory. March 13 and March 15, 2020 are two of those dates for me. As the executive leader of a small organization, I remember clearly the making decisions in the face of uncertainty those first couple of days. On March 13, I advised our staff of nearly 40 to take any materials home that they thought they would need for the next week. Little did any of us know at the time that it would be many months before we would return to the office, and that years later we still wouldn’t have returned full time.

As a small organization, it had always been our practice to follow the Mayor’s public announcements, so if public schools were closed for the snow days, our organization would close. As the weekend ticked on through Saturday, the public news grew increasingly alarming, and it became clear that staff members wouldn’t feel safe traveling to the office on Monday. Members of our leadership team communicated, but the Mayor and Governor remained silent through Sunday morning. For the first time during my tenure, we got out in front of the public announcement. At 2 pm, I emailed the staff telling them to stay home and not to travel to the office. I was concerned for their safety. Later that afternoon, the Mayor and Governor announced that all workers, except for essential workers, should stay home.

Fortunately, my organization’s ability to transition to fully remote work was very smooth. Having anticipated the need to be adaptable to more off-site work, we had already invested in the necessary technology to support our work remotely. To help our families, we launched programming immediately on Facebook Live, even though we had more questions than answers about how schools were going to support our students during this time. We immediately started an internal meeting with supervisors from across the organization called the “lemonade” meeting because we wanted to take a positive, solutions-oriented approach to the challenges, “lemons”, we confronted.

Initially, my husband and son, who was in high school, were home. One week later, my daughter, who was a sophomore in college, returned home too. We were all in our apartment, all the time, finding places to work and learn. It was comforting to be together. Never a family who watched TV together, we binge watched the Great British Baking Show. While the anxiety and stress was high and intense, over time I felt a great relief from the withering meeting schedule I was keeping pre-pandemic.

Then three months later, George Floyd was murdered. Having not yet metabolized the challenges of the pandemic, the world was further destabilized. I considered resigning my leadership position. I very much wanted our organizational accomplishments to survive, but I wasn’t sure I could confront the professional challenges. Fearing that a leadership change during this time wouldn’t be in the best interest of our organization, I stayed another two years. Our organization grew rapidly during this time because the demand for our services was high. But I was overtaxed and over stretched, as was the staff, so about two years after that initial decision to keep everyone home, I resigned.

As we emerge from the pandemic, I now notice how everyone in New York City rushes. I used to love the NYC pace and welcome it, but it now seems frantic to me. I like the flexibility of the hybrid work model and the ability to fulfill my professional responsibilities from many geographical locations. I picked up old hobbies and adopted new ones.

Yet as we emerge from the pandemic, I feel myself and the City shifting back to our old ways. My schedule has once again returned to a withering pace and I am cognizant of the burnout I felt prior to and during the pandemic. As we move forward, like many, I hope to preserve the new hobbies and friendships I have made, a more fluid lifestyle, and the slower pace.

This pandemic was very tough for lots of us here in NYC, and I can only imagine everyone shouldered different hardships through that time. I found my community struggling with their second major pandemic in a lifetime, HIV/AIDS being the first. Trust, money, food, housing, social comfort, and community became scarce literally overnight.

Delivering meals gave me the opportunity to connect to individuals in different neighborhoods I may not have visited before. The flexibility required during our build back stretched my design chops beyond my previous imagination. I faced and overcame other challenges I am very proud of, but without going into a long story of transformation and the creepy empty streets, I think I can sum up my lessons to this: Personhood is the most important thing. Personhood is all the qualities and their condition that make an individual person themselves. New York’s diversity as a city makes us strong and our community makes us stronger. The COVID pandemic gave individuals and organizations the chance to show their true colors in how to protect and respect personhood.

I look back and feel a since of relief that things today are somewhat back to “normal”, but I look through a different lens. Have we as a community changed from our COVID lessons to protect the personhood that creates the magic kaleidoscope of NYC? I cherish what an amazing life I get the privilege to live and share with my community here in NYC. I now feel how strongly I must protect my personhood and look for ways I can help others protect theirs. All while creating opportunities for us all to enjoy our time together and our communities.

Where were you in March of 2020. Is there a moment that stands out in your memory?

It was business as usual for me, I was commuting between my home in CT and downtown Manhattan for work. I remember getting concerned about what I was reading and I stopped at the pharmacy on my way to work in early March to pick up 3 or 4 containers of Clorox wipes for my office and when I got to work, people thought I was nuts!

What about the early days of lockdown do you remember most?

Fear. Concern. But also I remember thinking that we’d be back at work in a few weeks

Were you with or separated from family?

I was with my family

How did you adapt to lockdown? Was there any silver lining?

It was extremely challenging, especially with the kids trying to continue with school remotely and none of us wanting to leave the house or touch groceries or mail without wiping it down. There was so much unknown, so much fear. It was difficult to have to share an office with my spouse every day and figure out how to not drive each other crazy! We were frantic as it related to our office tenants and whether or not they would pay rent so we could pay our bills. There was a tremendous amount of work to get done to figure out the path forward at work, so it was non-stop, from waking up to going to sleep, there were no breaks. Only silver lining for us was moving into our house in CT sooner than we otherwise would have. It was such a blessing to have the yard and swimming pool instead of being stuck in our NYC apartment that summer of 2020. We also were able to get a dog, something the kids have wanted for years.

Has the Covid era affected your work or professional aspirations?

No, I’m still as ambitious and goal-oriented as I was before COVID – I just want to enjoy the flexibility that I have now (2 days working from home) that wasn’t as easy to get approved from the boss pre-COVID

How have we changed as a society – what stands out for you?

I think school aged kids suffered greatly due to COVID. Depending on their age during COVID, they either missed out on formal education during formative years, missed out on normal advancement of their education, missed out on major social events like proms or homecoming or athletic events, college prospects were impacted for the strong athletes out there and normal social development was impacted greatly – not just with the limited peer interaction during COVID, but having to wear a mask when back in school. The consequences of all these things have had a very negative impact on these kids.

What are some of the changes you have made that stick to this day?

Schedule flexibility and not going into the office 5 days per week

What will you remember most about these years?

They are a blur. I always think – before COVID, during COVID or after COVID when I am thinking about something from the past 5 years. The during COVID timeframe all just blends together. I think what I will remember the most is how adaptable we all were, how hard we all worked (in our pj’s), how much more personal things were at work (seeing colleagues dressed down, seeing their dogs and kids and spouses on the zoom screen) and how much progress was made in such a short time (related to technology, communications, innovation, amenities, focus on employee and tenant experience)

How do you feel about “going back to normal” – do you feel or sense a resistance to it?

I do feel a sense of resistance to it in some people, yes. There seems to be three categories – people who couldn’t wait for normalcy, people who never wanted to go back to normal (i.e. office 5 days a week) and people who appreciated the flexibility they got from their employers during covid and want to retain some portion of that.

How you feel about NYC?

Greatest city on earth! In many ways, it’s back to being busy most days and it feels normal. But the increase in crime, homelessness, etc. is extremely disappointing, challenging, and at times, downright scary.

I can remember seeing the news articles, the cruise ships stranded, the calls to buy masks (which, thanks to California wildfires, we already had a case in the closet) – it was a gradual creep of nerves amongst everyone for a while and then suddenly – everything stopped. I think it took the NBA cancelling to get that collective “Oh shit” from us all back on March 13.

There were many conversations amongst our team – what next? how can we help?

Then – “Can you make a budget for thousands of home-delivered meals?”. Sure, I suppose so. We didn’t know if it was going anywhere, or honestly how we would do it when the call came: We need you to start on Monday.

I told Andrew I needed to go to New York, some tears followed, and I spent the next few days on the phone from 4am to sundown trying to mobilize everyone vendors, ordering cardboard boxes, talking to partners, appointing a Safety Czar (What does that even mean?!) and finally got on a flight. The airport and plane were empty – as were the streets in New York.

I didn’t know how long this would last – a few weeks? a month? I moved through 5 different hotels and 2 apartments in the first 3 months, though not officially going home until January 2022. In my head, I think of that as the return to normal, but was it really?

Here we are, another year later, still thinking about the ‘return to normal’ – I saw a post recently about how no-one is signing ‘Stay Safe’ to emails anymore, does that mean we’ve returned to normal?

I think it’s perhaps a mistake to even try – we’ve all been changed – individually, as a company, and as a community. We came to rely on each other in ways that we never did, or even tried, before. It’s my hope that we can harness that optimism, empathy, and care as we go into another “post” COVID year and create something even better (though what that is….I haven’t figured out quite yet)

I lost my mother in February 2020 and there was a palpable absence in my life. In March when COVID became real my young adults all decided to come to our NJ home with their significant others. It was the greatest gift. Their presence filled a void, my need to love and be loved. My grieving was dulled by the need to keep the people I loved most in the world safe.

I tried new recipes, desperate to feed eight different souls with discerning palettes at the end of a long, strange workday. My son-in-law, always curious, watched me and learned to bake. My kitchen was filled with wonderful aromas and my arms with people who needed comfort and assurance as much as I did.

I saw my young adults in a new way. I marveled at their ability to act as a team – how each one settled into a routine of clearing plates, sweeping the floor, setting the table, gathering us for activities, instructing us how to use the Peloton, and (bless him) fixing our technology woes.

We spent time after dinner playing Uno, watching Tiger King, Ozark, The Crown, it didn’t matter what – it was a sacred, healing time of gathering and being together. We walked as a group for miles each day exploring our neighborhood for the first time – discovering the pleasure of just breathing fresh air, the magic of the seasons changing, and voicing our angst, fears, and aspirations.

Each left when they were ready. Maria Shriver described it best when she said, “Home is a fueling station,” a safe place to come home and stock up on what you need.

When I returned to NYC to work, I was reminded of how much I love the city, how it had suffered, how less fortunate so many were and I am filled with a passion and drive to make a difference and help our communities recover. I am different, resilient and so is the city.

Some moments that stood out for me:

• Getting a call from the Office of Emergency Management on a Saturday asking for 10,000 meals to be produced on Monday – and being able to execute it.

• Sitting in a client’s office on a Thursday in March, my phone kept going off with all our clients telling me to call them as they were starting to close.

• Balancing working from home – my son across the dining room table at virtual kindergarten, singing with the group, while I was at the other end in a virtual meeting.

• Negotiating a contract on a call while my son chased me around the house with a laundry basket on his head (look at me mommy!).

• Having new clients that I didn’t get to meet in person for over a year after working with them.

• Working with vendors to develop new ways of safety in food service – and seeing technology move faster than it had before.

• Watching in amazement as the NYC departments came together to organize getting food to people who needed it the most. There were so many late night and weekend calls, and everyone was on call 24/7.

• Staying flexible as a company to keep up with our guests’ and clients’ needs, based on constantly changing guidelines and requirements.

Where were you in March of 2020. Is there a moment that stands out in your memory?

I remember having dinner at my parents’ house when we first heard about the “pause”. My mom and I had just visited Prague in late January, so we were grateful for our trip. My sister is a school teacher and mother of 3, and was quite concerned about what was happening. We assured each other everything would be okay and temporary.

What about the early days of lockdown do you remember most?

I remember ordering pick up from a small local restaurant that I knew needed our help and I picked up corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day and went to my parents’ house. I also remember an inability to stay home and had to remain as active as possible but felt somewhat powerless. As someone who very much enjoys their routine, COVID was not a good fit for me.

Were you with or separated from family?

I lived with my cat.

How did you adapt to lockdown?

I used the time and experience to focus on what I COULD do, not what I couldn’t. I led a team to pivot on in-person education programs to virtual, I would focus on things that could continue progressing virtually and I continued my daily routine as closely as possible, never really letting lockdown change me.

Was there any silver lining?

You learn what is truly most important in life and how privileged we are to live in the greatest, most caring city in the world.

Do you have any family experiences to share?

In November 2020, just before Thanksgiving, my sister, her whole family, and my parents – in their 70’s – all got COVID. My mom was hospitalized, and I felt powerless. I quarantined because I was exposed but never got COVID and I was the last person in the family that could still go about my business hoping my 93-year-old grandmother wouldn’t catch COVID. The hardest part was the inability to visit the hospital and properly communicate. Thankfully, everyone is fine today.

How have we changed as a society – what stands out for you?

The thing that stands out most is how we haven’t changed. Visit a restaurant, store or crowded subway and the overwhelming majority of New Yorker’s are no longer masked. There are days that pass where I don’t think about COVID. New Yorker’s are resilient and we bounced back quickly. Perhaps the greatest legacy of COVID is not the virus itself but what came out of it: that we have a lot of work to do to fight for equity and justice in society.

What are some of the changes you have made that stick to this day?

 As someone who directly experience 9/11 and Superstorm Sandy, I have changed so much in 20 years that I’m not sure COVID has. Anyone that knew me pre-COVID would say I’m the the same person, perhaps more motivated to get stuff done.

What will you remember most about these years?

There are too many things to mention, but one memory that jumps out is walking along quiet streets of the Financial District to meet friends on Stone Street. All the table and chairs gone, the people too, but there we were to continue our routine and laugh a little.

So much comes to mind…

Professionally, starting in March of 2020 and lasting until late in 2022, it was extremely challenging to interpret and navigate the constantly changing landscape of city, state and federal regulations arising from COVID, from the essential worker exception to the stay-at-home order, the health and safety regulations, the restrictions on gatherings, the vaccine mandates and many more.

Personally, in the early days of COVID, we would cook for our family and drive around Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan dropping off care packages. This was how we were able to do a weekly outdoor check in with our family.

Where were you in March of 2020. Is there a moment that stands out in your memory?

I just came back from a ski trip where we all discussed this thing was coming but it would be over in a few weeks and then of course it was not.

What about the early days of lockdown do you remember most?

I felt as if we were living in a science fiction book. So much of the information seemed so absurd. Going to the grocery store was a planned event, wearing dishwashing gloves and a bandanna around my mouth. I felt like a gangster in our own society.

Were you with or separated from family?

We were in Los Angeles and our kids were out east We eventually all connected but that month long separation during a global pandemic was not good.

How did you adapt to lockdown? Was there any silver lining?

Humans adapt. We had no choice The silver lining was doing jigsaw puzzles, watching films, taking it down a notch until we realized it was becoming just a new way of life.

Has the Covid era affected your work or professional aspirations?

Personally, nothing has changed in regards to work. I was making changes before Covid happened. I am definitely more aware of enjoying every day with how I want to live it.

Do you have any family experiences to share?

It was very tough on one of our kids and we have three. It has created a chasm in our family in the post. Perhaps Covid just accelerated what was already there.

How have we changed as a society – what stands out for you?

Absolutely we have changed, and I believe there is more change to take place. People do not want to return to the life before Covid, but they aren’t sure exactly what their life should look like in post Covid Also it fucked up the economy and that is shifting everyone regardless of having lived through a pandemic

I embraced carpe diem after 9/11 and that has amplified post Covid. I want to have more meaningful relationships in a deeper way.

What are some of the changes you have made that stick to this day?

One dry vodka martini a day.

What will you remember most about these years?

Slowing down, reassessing relationships and life

How do you feel about “going back to normal” – do you feel or sense a resistance to it?

We are evolving we aren’t going back. I applaud the resistance to return particularly for the next generation. They need to live it differently and who knows maybe they know something we don’t.

How you feel about NYC?

I miss the grit. Hudson Yards destroyed something in NYC that pains me. We can’t survive as a diverse functional city without reigning in the real estate prices to line up with what people can afford or we will be a city of just wealthy people. Public housing should be phenomenal, and it sucks. The crime and homelessness is painful. But many of these issues started with DeBlasio at the helm. We need serious leadership and I fear we don’t have it and nobody of any worth wants to be in politics anymore.