Thank you, thank you: Our Thanksgiving Day gratitude to NYC and its people
Thanksgiving Day in New York in 2020 will be very different from the Nov. 26, 1789, day that newly minted president George Washington declared would be a time for Americans to reflect and give thanks, after many years of war, “for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed.”
Today, with the pandemic resurgent and more than 26,000 New Yorkers killed, while food pantry lines stretch long, it certainly feels like tranquility, union and plenty are in short supply.
But we’ve still got so much to be thankful for. Where would we be without our frontline workers, doctors, nurses, orderlies and hospital janitors, grocery store clerks, postal employees and our tireless school teachers?
Give thanks for a city that didn’t sit by watching the federal government fail at getting COVID test supplies, but instead manufactured its own, a city where our public hospitals adapted lightning quick to process virus tests faster than the big commercial labs.
Give thanks for revered old charities and scrappy mutual aid groups that sprang up like wildflowers overnight, delivering face masks and food to people in need.
Give thanks for the restaurants, the diners, the pizzerias, that fed health care workers, that brilliantly improvised structures for outdoor dining, that fought and are still fighting to stay alive.
Give thanks to the artists, professionals and amateurs alike, who looked at plywood boarded storefronts and saw not decay or disorder but an opportunity to make glorious, dazzling street art, beautifying daily life in a dark and dismal time.
Give thanks most of all to all of the New Yorkers who respected the social contract and stayed inside through the worst days this city’s ever seen, who put on and keep on their face masks to keep a vicious bug at bay.
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