Missing Tourists

Today is the very first time I have stepped on a subway since the virus launched its fury. As soon as the familiar “Stand clear of the closing doors” came out, I became so lost in thoughts and emotions. The announcement was such a routine for average New Yorkers and for most of the time we are impervious to it. We hear it and we don’t hear it. But today I heard it. I heard it again and again while the train was making its way to the city. And I so wanted to hear it that I could literally stay on the train forever… The city looks the same but it looks very different. When I was walking through Little Italy, I suddenly realized that there was no line to get ice cream at Ferrara. But it is summer. It is Ferrara. How is it possible? Mulberry street looks even more European with all the tables and seats lined up along the street. On a usual summer day, the owners would stand in the street, holding a menu, and would try their very best to intercept the passersby to make their pitch. But today, their aggressiveness was nowhere to be found. Well there aren’t that many passersby to pester in the first place. This isn’t the kind of Little Italy I am used to seeing. Even though all the elements are all still there, there is one big missing piece, the piece we sometimes, no a lot of times, would complain about. We are missing tourists. And I hate to say this but I do miss them. Little Italy without tourists is simply not Little Italy anymore. NYC without tourists isn’t that much of a world class city. And I feel immensely sad about it, not simply because I miss seeing tourists. But not seeing tourists is indicative of my own loss. If they are not coming, I simply cannot go either. I want the city to be filled with them so I could go and be like them in Paris again, in London again, in Amsterdam again, in Istanbul again, in Venice again, in Prague again, in Tokyo again, in Rio again, in Moscow again, in Bangkok again, in Seoul again, in Cairo again… But I can only be here, walking through the empty Little Italy...