Low Humming of Fearful Residents

Manhattan Lease Signings Are Booming. Is It Enough for a Recovery?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/realestate/manhattan-lease-signings.html

In our UWS mixed condo/rental there is a bouillabaisse of Covid-escapee vacants, quick-sell left towns, AirBnB cancellations, rushed legal and illegal renovations, episodic facade repairs, gas system fixes, new faster data pipings, front desk Purell, mask dispensers and surgeons gloves, heaps of Amazon boxes, better-tipped staff, wary elevator riders avoiding residents and construction and delivery workers, floor-stomping, yelling shut-in kids and shouting shut-up parents, not mentioning the increase in ambulance, fire and police sirens thrumming window panes.

There's low hum of fearful minds, hearts and lungs not knowing what's going on, what might happen, what's not being told beyond paste-ups of Covid protection, who is carrying, who is positive or negative, who is suspecting bombshells incoming and keeping it quiet to sustain property value or head off eviction or DoB stop work order or "there's a body in the library George."

Dreadful predictions from Cuomo and de Blasio and Fauci of horrors acoming, vaccines spoiling or non-existent, spectral subways and buses, dire warnings of taxes gone south, way south, schools not safe for return or maybe a little bit safe, who knows for sure, working remote driving households nutty as fruitcakes.

Then Sleepy Joe and Dazzling Kamala descended from interplanetary nowhere to kick out the klieged fraudster who brayed "it will all go away" 400,000 deaths ago, a few stats in this very freaked out UWS sanctuary of panicky animals.