Fake It Till You Make It?
Challenges haven’t left, but New York City is putting on a brave face.

Last Saturday night, I was walking around my neighborhood of West Village after dinner with a friend in search of a sweet treat to take home for dessert, particularly the squared chocolate wafers Quadratini. It was only 8:30 at night and we figured we could rely on a good ol’ open-till-late deli to satisfy our cravings. We walked for roughly five minutes, commenting  on the busy and buzzy outdoor dining scene that crowded the sidewalks. “I love how they illuminated each table.” “That pizza looks dry.” “I feel like they could have used nicer chairs.” “That’s definitely not social distancing...” we quipped back and forth, restaurant by restaurant. Ambiance critique aside, walking up Bleecker Street, heading West on Morton and up again on Hudson, in those few blocks we stopped by five delis. Delis on every corner isn’t anything new in New York City, but what was new was that most were closed. “Did I read the time wrong?” I exclaimed. “It’s not even that late!”

At any given moment in any year but 2020, if you found yourself lightly or heavily inebriated at three in the morning, you were likely moments away from finding somewhere to get food at that hour. In New York City, there were endless options. My go-to for late night food would either be Bleecker Street Pizza, a far too tempting short walk from my apartment, or simply the nearest diner I could find. In any year but 2020, no matter your situation, you could always trust that if you needed food–and company–fluorescent lights and speedy waiters would be there for you just a few blocks away. Now it’s not so easy. Just the thought of being out at such a late hour now is unfathomable, even eerie to me. Granted I’m saving myself the embarrassment of trying to order for the occasional sloppy drunk friend, but I can’t help but miss the countless waiters that have had to deal with God knows what at that hour, and the grace and silence with which they did it.

Although we did eventually find the Quadratini, I was left reminiscing on the accessibility to late-night food, and even felt a duty to somehow check-in with the other side.  I decided to phone the holy trinity of late-night New York City: a deli, a pizza place, and a diner. However, when I tried to turn my usual, “Can I get that square pizza over there?” into the unfortunately overused “What has it been like?” and “What has changed?” I could barely get anything from anyone.

 The most I got was, “Sure, big difference.” from Jung Yang at Abingdon Market when I asked about switching from being open twenty-four hours to their current hours of  6 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. Ironically, the last bit of information he gave me was that not a lot of people came in between midnight and 4 a.m. anyways. At Bleecker Street Pizza,  the staff was equally unwilling to answer questions. The longest sentence was, “Depends on what the questions are.” from Jack, last name, “No it’s okay.” At Waverly Diner it was simply, “Can you call back at a better time?”

Maybe they’re tired of talking about struggling businesses or a customer was actually walking in at the moment I began my questions; or maybe, ideally, people just want to try and move on. No one wanted to engage in conversations about the difficulties of the virus, with every answer insisting that business was back to normal and they were too busy to talk. I couldn’t keep anyone on the phone long enough to find out how true that was, but I appreciated the firm attitude. I always thought there’s no better poker face than that of an employee at any late-night place trying to get an order from an incoherent drunk. Whether the positive answers I got about business in a pandemic was their poker face in use or not, I decided to take it as a reflection of being “New York Tough.”

Attitude isn’t by any means all it takes to survive in New York City, but you definitely can’t survive without a strong one. When I walk around my neighborhood I see 99% of people being good sports by wearing masks, I see creative outdoor dining areas (packed) that I love to have to squeeze by, I see a protest outside the Stonewall Inn with a Drag Queen on a megaphone encouraging people to say “I love you.” to the strangers on their left. Maybe the reality behind that is a person cursing at their glasses fogging up because of the mask, a restaurant anxious for more government funds, and a community scared for this country’s future, but it’s the attitude of “It’s alright, we’re moving forward” and the insistence on not portraying anything but such that allows New Yorkers to confidently laugh and scoff when Trump claims this city is a “ghost town.” Open hours may have changed but it only takes one glance to see that New York City is the liveliest it’s been in months, not that anyone would let you think otherwise anyways.