Last New Year’s Eve, a million people in Midtown Manhattan flooded and kissed and cheered in the hot glow of 2020’s promise. This New Year’s Eve, only a few hundred will gather in Times Square – dozens of frontline workers among them – and then only by special invitation.
If the temperature is controlled and face masks are secured, it will represent a country holding a mirror to the lips of 2020 to confirm that there is no fog;
But here’s an existential question to think about your dealer Joe’s hors d’oeuvres and drink: if a ball falls on Times Square at midnight and almost no one is present to see it, have a new year really start?
We are conditioned to believe that a bent old man with an hour-long tick on a particular midnight hands over the baton of time to a living cherub in a hat. All the problems of 12 months end, and life begins anew.
If only it were that way.
“I’m more looking forward to burying 2020 than looking forward to 2021,” said Stephen Hughes, an assistant chief at the New York Police Department who helps oversee the night. “I just can not wait to see 2020 again.”
Juanita Erb, a clinical research nurse invited to attend this year’s Times Square celebration, agrees. But, she added: “Changing the clock in 2021 is not going to make everything disappear.”
But it is the pandemic that marked the year, with more than 340,000 coronavirus-related deaths in the country – an average of 930 per day, 39 per hour. And although the year also included the rapid development of vaccines, most Americans will only be vaccinated until 2021, which means that deadly infections will continue.
At the Times Square rally, the evening’s grace is an invitation to a few dozen frontline workers and their families. Among them will be Erb, 44, a clinical research nurse who has been helping oversee trials for the Pfizer vaccine at the NYU Langone Vaccine Center for the past few months.
Another of the invited guests is Danny Haro, 22, a community college student from Montclair, NJ, who delivers food to an Italian restaurant and provides security for a clothing store. He is one of the unseen whose work enables others to experience vague normality in a pandemic.
While the coronavirus crisis raged in early spring, the Villa Victoria Pizzeria in Montclair began donating pasta and salads to workers at the nearby Mountainside Hospital, while Mr. Haro regularly delivered the food in his 2009 Ford Escape.
In early April, he tested the virus positively. There comes the fever, the chest pains, the loss of smell – the long nights for fear of not being able to breathe.
Mr. Haro feels much better now, and he says he expects 2021, at least at the beginning, to look a lot like 2020. He then wishes for one thing.
“Strength”, said Mr. Haro said. “Just strength, honestly.”