Downloaded from YTS.MX
[somber music]
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
[ambulance siren wailing]
- [REPORTER 1] Queens in New York
is the worst infected district in what is now
the world's worst infected city.
- [REPORTER 2] And among the hardest hit:
the hospitality industry.
We're talking about restaurants, bars,
forced to shut down except for takeout.
- [REPORTER 3] That means tens,
if not hundreds of thousands of people
in the city will soon be out of work.
- [CUOMO] This is a moment that is gonna change this nation.
This is a moment that forges character,
forges people,
changes people.
[subway rumbling]
- [JENA] What does it take to destroy a staple, you know?
What's gonna happen to all, all of the restaurants
that had to lay everybody off?
Are we gonna be able to come back?
Are we just gonna walk by that spot on the corner
and feel like there's a hole in our neighborhood?
A place that brought so many of us together...
I grew up in that fuckin' bar.
It sounds silly to say it,
but I grew up in that fuckin' bar.
I've worked there for 10 years.
It's not even just a place to get a drink.
It's a place to like, sit down and talk
and have friends
and an ear and a community and an artistic space.
And how many of us, like our lives are changed
'cause we just walked into that dark room?
- To zero?
If we don't freeze the rent
and if my bills remain the same,
I maybe have three months.
[ethereal music]
[soft electronic music]
[indistinct chattering]
- [GAIL] This is important.
People should be documenting it.
It's certainly one of the more seminal events
of our lifetime.
- [JENA] I wound up deciding to move to New York,
to go to The New School.
I went to Eugene Lang
and I majored in performance and creative writing.
I was burning through all the money I saved.
I sold my car to move here and like,
uh, wasn't really thinking about it.
I was in New York and it's easy to spend money.
I realized I needed a job.
I think my bank account hit 20 bucks.
I was like, "Oh, shit...
I guess I better get a job."
- [NICCI] I had bartended prior to living in Queens,
and one of the older regulars had told me,
"I've never met a nicer person than in Queens.
You should be happy to be moving there.
You'll see what I mean when you get there."
And I have not left for 16 years
because of exactly that statement.
- [MIKE] Queens, Astoria specifically is where I've lived
since about 2001.
It's one of the places I've been in New York
that feels mostly like a neighborhood,
mostly like a community.
I don't think I've made as many special bonds
and friendships outside of high school.
Astoria is not even a mile from the city.
You can get on the train
and it takes 20 minutes to get to Times Square.
But when you get in that hustle and bustle of big city life,
you come to Astoria,
this is still a place where you can meet your neighbors
and go next door and ask for a cup of sugar kind of place,
where I didn't feel that living
in other neighborhoods in New York.
- [MOLLY] The borough is so diverse, neighborhoods
at points seem to change by blocks.
Our part of Astoria is known for being Greek.
It still has a huge Greek population.
On Steinway, there's several blocks
of Middle Eastern, Egyptian...
I can just hop on a train, go to Jackson Heights,
get some really good Nepalese food
and then just hop back on the train and go all the way out
to Flushing and get really good Chinese food or Asian food.
We're pretty lucky.
- I've just never seen anything like that.
Just soon as you hop off the bus in any given direction
just massive amount of food,
massive amount of people moving around.
Get on the train, you know,
and at least to me,
things don't get slow, but things slow down.
It becomes more immediately blue-collar
as it gets because you roll past the Queensbridge projects.
Which, you know, for me, I'm a hip hop dude.
How you doing? [inaudible]
Willie Lee McIntyre Jr., otherwise known as Skech.
[Willie rapping]
- [WILLIE] So like, it's the only time in my life
I've ever been astounded by housing project
because of everything that's come from there.
- I love it.
I'll never leave.
As long as I'm in New York, I'll stay here.
I love Queens.
I fell in love with the people here.
I mean, the guy at the coffee shop knows who I am.
I go down to the bar that I live right next door to
and I also work at, and at any time of day,
I can see my friends, see my family.
And that's coming from a place like Daytona,
not coming from a city, that really helped.
That made me very grounded, moving here.
I moved here to be a musician,
so I wanted to be next to a place like Manhattan
and have those opportunities, but not live there.
So being able to have this place,
and have this family was perfect for me.
I loved it.
I love it here.
- I love it. I've lived here 13 years.
I love that I can walk somewhere and run into people
that I know and love.
And we've always been really protective
about our neighborhoods because we like that they are quiet.
We don't want them overly built up.
I mean, you can't build them too high
because of the airport,
but also like, we don't want your condos,
go do that somewhere else.
We really want our old Greek crotchety neighbors
who play classical music and tend to their birds.
- [JENA] When I moved to Queens
at some point in my first year
or so here, I wound up at the Sparrow Tavern.
So, I walked into a dark rock and roll bar
and we had a couple of beers and some fries
and I fell in love with it.
I remember looking around the bar
and feeling like I was at home.
And I was like, "I should work here."
- [NICCI] When Jena was hired,
Jena was a force to be reckoned with.
Sparrow Tavern would not exist without Jena.
We have, at different points in our lives,
at this particular bar, have been a dynamic duo.
She's almost been an assistant manager for me
and, you know, you need that a lot of times.
And she wore a lot of hats there,
and she's made my job a lot easier and I love her.
- [MIKE] She has helped make our bar thrive.
People love to come in and see her personality.
People love to come in and just see her smile
and then they light up.
- She was my first friend that I met at Sparrow.
One of the first ones that, she trained me.
Jena is always a very driven person.
- [MIKE] Whenever I make a drink,
I'll never let her taste it
because I know regardless she's gonna have an ingredient
she wants to change or take out or add.
And I don't share it with her
because I want to remain proud of myself
and I don't want to learn. [laughs]
Probably my best cocktail is, I take a warm glass
and I pour whiskey in it.
She thinks I should change it.
- So I came from the hotel industry for many years
and started moonlighting at Sparrow Tavern in 2009
with Jena, Nicci, Mike...
and it was a joy.
It was pretty much my social life.
I was there as a patron.
They roped me in to work there,
having been a bar fly there for too many nights.
And this bond just really forms,
this kind of,
very close tight-knit situation
that I never had with my hotel staff
that I work with.
- You watch "Cheers"?
- [NICCI] So, we've all seen "Cheers".
Okay. That's the bare essentials, right?
That's the formula, right?
- I don't want to be cliche
and like, "Oh, it's like Cheers."
Because that's really stupid, but it's kinda true.
- [JON] There's this concept of "the third place",
which is neither work nor home,
and the bar is an example of a third place.
One of the things that takes place
in a true third place is a leveling of status,
so everyone gets treated the same.
And I think that one of the facets
of a true New York City neighborhood bar
is this kind of leveling.
- [WILLIE] It's important, like third space,
it's the one place you could potentially shut off
a certain part of yourself that has to always be performing.
When you're at work, you have co-workers, bosses.
Even if you're a boss, you have employees,
people you need to talk to,
things that need to be serviced.
A certain way you have to maintain yourself.
A certain way you have to speak in both spaces.
The third space is the one space
nobody's asking anything from you.
- And in New York, that's really important
because we don't really have living rooms
and dining rooms the same way other places do.
So, you need to have a meeting ground, right?
- [DAVE] Imagine moving from someplace,
and you wander in by yourself,
and you sit down at the bar, and within a week
you now have six friends.
Within a month, you now have 30 friends.
For our regulars here,
and I mean this in the truest sense,
they became our family.
- You now have the support group
that came from this, just mutual spot.
When you're not from here,
things like that are very important.
I've watched a blind date happen,
then a year later, an engagement party happen
at the same place.
- [PETER] People walked in here 35 years ago,
and would see just an incredible, loud,
music-playing loud bar of African American,
Caribbean American, Dominicans,
doctors, cops, and...
and they weren't used to seeing an integrated bar
and we were integrated, and it was happily so.
- [DAVE] I think one of the nicest things
that has been expressed to us, is...
...families who were having a difficult time
in the hospital...
[voice cracking] especially with children...
[somber music]
and they found an oasis here,
and we gave them a break.
And that, to me, may be the most meaningful.
- [JON] That's the beauty of a neighborhood bar.
Everyone is welcome and everyone is treated the same,
and it's a common ground,
it's a meeting place,
it's a watering hole where you can meet
and exchange ideas with other members of your community.
[indistinct chattering]
- [NICK] I love Jena.
She doesn't shut the fuck up.
And I mean that in a loving way,
I mean that in a loving way
and we had a really good working dynamic.
We worked very well together.
We killed it.
- [JENA] What is a bar husband?
A bar spouse is someone that you work with more
than anybody else, who you have created an entire bond with,
and you are kind of like the yin to their yang.
And I really only have one bar husband,
and that is Nick Smoocher. [laughs]
Nick Elezovic.
- [MIKE] I think I live a charmed life because of it,
'cause I don't think you get that at every bar.
The fact that you can build a deep bond
and become that type of friend with everyone.
- You're involved in everyone's life beyond the bar,
which doesn't happen in any other,
in most places, certainly not non-neighborhood bars.
Moving here as a lost twentysomething was like,
it was the perfect thing.
I mean, I'll forever be grateful for those people.
[somber music]
[medical equipment beeping]
- [REPORTER] They're fighting a war here
and they're losing.
The sheer numbers of people succumbing
to the coronavirus is overwhelming every hospital
in Northern Italy.
- [DR. KAUSHIK] Some of my friends work in China
and in late 2019,
I started hearing from them that,
"Hey, there's this virus,
it's a viral infection
similar to SARS in China.
We don't know much about it,
but, you know, it's more prevalent
than what's coming out in the media."
- I was overseas in December
and I'd heard about the Hubei province experience
and that they were in a lockdown
with a novel coronavirus.
- I first heard about the virus in January.
Then, at the time, it was mostly in China.
- [REPORTER] In New Rochelle,
this synagogue is the epicenter
of one of the biggest COVID-19 clusters
in the U.S.
The majority of cases in New York state,
trace to one patient who worshiped here.
- The number of cases doubling
in the New York City area overnight.
The Mayor today calling
the spread, "unpredictable and worrisome."
Many new cases tied to one man
who took that train into the city.
- [REPORTER 2] Most linked to a lawyer
who frequently commuted out of Grand Central Terminal,
one of the busiest train stations in the country.
- Early February was when, at least
we in the hospital system that I work in,
began to, in earnest, really discuss the possibility
that we might be faced with this
as a true viral pandemic.
- [GAIL] I work in behavioral health.
Behavioral health is a contact sport.
By about mid-February,
we had some cognition that
this was going to start
to become some sort of a game changer.
We started to transition and plan
for what if we had to work remotely.
- [REPORTER] All New York City schools
shutting down starting tomorrow.
- Moments ago, the Mayor inched closer
to a possible citywide shutdown of restaurants and bars.
- [DR. GELCETER] The majority of the New York-based
came from Europe, from Italy.
So, we were protecting ourselves
against China before we realized
that it was gonna be a real problem
amongst Americans and European tourists, swapping sides.
- It was almost like turning on a switch.
End of the second week, beginning third week in March,
it was like you flipped the switch on.
And all of a sudden our ER was full.
They were essentially all COVID.
- [REPORTER 1] The city's hospitals
will be on the frontlines
in this war against the coronavirus.
In Elmhurst, Queens, that hospital,
there are lines of people this morning.
- [REPORTER 2] Elmhurst Hospital is really
at the center of this crisis,
here in the city and in the country.
- [REPORTER 3] Inside Elmhurst Hospital,
medical staff struggle to keep people alive.
More people have died here
than in any other area of New York City.
- Initial emotions were...
What the fuck?
What is going on? What's happening?
Am I scared? Am I scared enough? Am I too scared?
It was a lot of confusion
and a lot of instant stress.
- [NICK] I started feeling ill
Thursday, March 12th,
is when symptoms started coming on.
Runny nose, like a bad cold is coming.
I'm just like, "Okay, this is not what I need now."
- And I just remember crying in my kitchen
when Nick was like, "Yeah, I think I have it."
Um... [somber music]
Because I mean, for as sprightly as he is,
I mean, Nick's older
and, um...
just made me really worried.
When he told me that... this,
I didn't even know what to do. Like I told Mike,
I was like, "Fucking Smooch... Smooch has it."
I mean, I sat next to him, I hugged him.
The two of us are generally pretty physically close.
We don't really have a lot of boundaries.
So I was like, "If it came from there
then why don't I have it too?"
And he just looked so small,
but just seeing Nick physically not feel good
was really hard for me.
- My name is Nick Elezovic
and your staff helped me a couple of weeks ago,
set up a test
here in Queens, New York,
and I came up as positive.
I had the roughest seven to nine days.
Those last two weeks of March were probably
the toughest of my life.
Starting March 16th,
we were forced to close our bar.
I got the COVID... For two weeks,
I went to bed and just laid in bed, saying to myself,
"I'm fucked," over and over again.
And I barely got one to two hours of sleep
for those last two weeks of March.
I just stared at the ceiling and said,
"I'm fucked, how am I gonna get out of this?"
[somber music]
- [REPORTER 1] 9:00 AM on Tuesday,
all bars across the city of New York will be closed.
Thousands of employees at New York City nightspots
about to be out of work.
- [REPORTER 2] Among the hardest hit:
the hospitality industry.
We're talking about restaurants, bars, forced to shut down.
- [REPORTER 3] It's tens,
if not hundreds of thousands of people in the city
will soon be out of work.
- [REPORTER 4] I mean, just consider the Irish pubs,
like the ones behind me here.
St. Patrick's Day is typically their busiest night
of the whole year.
- [MIKE] I think I cried probably five nights in a row
that I worked
because I thought to myself,
"This is the last drink I'm gonna pour here."
Jena had come in,
my boss had come in,
and we're all taking half the tables out
and bringing them downstairs
and kind of looking at each other
going, "What are we gonna do?"
- You could feel within the air
an entire few hundred thousand people feel like
they were completely fucked
at the exact same time.
Almost every bar shut down at the exact same time
and we were gonna live off of potentially
three hundred-something dollars a week.
Which meant we had to not eat
in order to pay our rent.
- [NICCI] There's a lot of people that walked in that door,
knowing that perhaps that was gonna be their last
for a long time.
That's when I think it hit me because, um...
I've done the same thing for 14 years.
I have served more or less the same people for 14 years,
and I've ran my mouth continuously for 14 years.
And to let that stop
and to not know when this industry
that you love so much will come back thriving, it was scary.
[somber music]
- [NICCI] It was there one day and gone the next and...
before entertaining unemployment,
before entertaining praying I have a rich aunt somewhere,
you're just in this position of,
"Wait, what? This is really happening."
This is really happening.
Everything I put my heart and soul in
for all these years has literally come to a halt,
based on someone else's decision to not re-open.
- [REPORTER] These are drastic changes,
no other way to put it.
And there's a lot of uncertainty
including what sort of help those business owners
and employees might get from the federal, state
and local level.
- [NICK] Knots in my stomach,
just stomach churning. Stomach churning.
I was worried I might get an ulcer, just nervousness.
I cannot sleep, I cannot...
My brain will not shut down.
My brain will not stop.
Just trying to think of scenarios,
worst case scenarios,
possibilities to get out of this.
You know, coming up with contingency plans.
What if we go a year without opening our bar?
Or longer?
- We saw numbers starting to climb around
St. Patrick's Day,
and we saw the wave moving eastward from Manhattan.
Seeing a lot of people suddenly bombarding
the healthcare system in the city, in Manhattan.
And we knew that it was just a matter of a week or 10 days
because a lot of Queens
is the bedroom community for Manhattan.
We were overwhelmed, as was everybody else.
- [DOCTOR] 9/11 was nothing compared to this.
We were open, waiting for patients to come who never came.
Okay. Now they just keep coming.
And they're all ages.
Don't delude yourself into thinking only the old will die.
- [GAIL] We had September 11th,
and we've had the school shootings.
There's been so many things,
but they've been events where there was a demarcation.
There was a clear beginning.
There was a middle.
There was the end.
One of the unique features of this
is that we don't know where the end is.
Period.
- [REPORTER 1] City ambulances have seen
a surge in calls, responding to nearly 5,800 Thursday.
- [REPORTER 2] This, unfortunately,
is just the beginning,
with the crisis expected to last for months
and the peak of it all still on the horizon.
[ambulance siren wailing]
- I hate it.
It's nerve wracking.
It's...
It's, it's just...
you know, my mind immediately goes to,
"Are they just dead?
Who's dead now?"
You know... or like, "Who is it?
Is it somebody that I know?
Is this... what is going on?"
- [WILLIE] The virus is like
trying to win a fight against the wind.
No matter what, especially in a place like this,
it could be everywhere.
That's the feeling.
It could be everywhere.
- [BRADEN] Day to day in Queens,
it's the hardest hit borough of New York
and living here and being scared to go outside
and worried about not having a job
and not really knowing how long
this is gonna last and what you're gonna do
at the end of it.
I mean, it's just the most anxiety-ridden time ever.
Your mind and body want to do something about it,
but the only thing you can do is the absence of anything.
[ambulance siren wailing]
- It's constant. It's...
[ambulance siren wailing]
It's, um...
It invades everything
because there also aren't other sounds.
I live right next door to a playground.
I don't hear kids playing in the playground, you know?
I hear sirens instead.
- [GAIL] If you look at the whole concept of PTSD,
one of the factors generally
is a perceived threat to yourself
whether it's perceived or whether it's real.
Obviously, the virus is a very, very real threat.
Especially if you lived in an area like Astoria or Elmhurst
that there was a very high concentration,
you're gonna feel like it's creeping on you.
- You hear ambulances.
And then you see ambulances creating a line,
a traffic jam, to get to your emergency room.
And you know that these ambulances
are carrying patients who all have the same disease.
I do not recall ever,
and it has never been experienced
by anybody, in which so many patients
with the same disease
are presenting to a hospital at the same time.
At one point in time,
we had 85% of our hospital were COVID patients.
Our hospital ran out of body bags.
- Every time I hear a siren,
which is pretty often,
it's every 20 minutes I feel like,
your mind always says,
"Well, there goes another one."
It's very scary.
About a week ago, an ambulance was at my house
and they were up at the apartment above mine.
Anytime somebody sneezes
or even yourself,
when it's just some little symptomatic thing,
or you have a tiny ache or you have a headache
or you're a little queasy,
like anything that doesn't feel right
that you may have felt normally before.
It's just, "I have it. Get ready, here it comes."
- [GAIL] You're in an area where there's a lot of virus
or in a building and hearing the sirens, hearing them often,
it triggers that feeling
of being threatened by this enemy that we can't see.
So, it's part of the syndrome.
It's part of being traumatized
by what is happening around us.
[ambulance siren wailing]
- [DR. KAUSHIK] The traditional tools that we have:
talking, touching, feeling, being close,
you know, bringing people together,
we have not been able to.
Emotionally, I think it's taken a...
a big toll on doctors, on nurses,
on physicians having seen the isolation
that patients are going through.
- The feeling of being powerless,
not knowing if your patient will make it the next day,
despite all your effort
in providing all the support that as a physician
you could provide.
The feeling of helplessness knowing
that you don't have any specific treatment.
- [DR. GELCETER] It's hard to unring certain bells
and you've never seen anything like this before.
And you are an unwitting...
the emotional unpreparedness,
together with the impact of this
is gonna hurt a lot of people.
[somber music]
- It really hits you,
but you still have to go through the day
and do your best to save your patient's life.
- [DR. KAUSHIK] For healthcare workers,
this is gonna carry a long-term trauma as well.
Just like war veterans get PTSD,
a lot of physicians, nurses, therapists,
transporters that have seen,
tremendous amount of suffering
from this disease in the hospitals,
will carry these scars for a long time.
- [GAIL] All of us as a community
are really in the process still of walking through
what I can best describe as a collective trauma,
or a collectively traumatic experience.
- [CUOMO] I want to say to
the people of the state of New York:
if you are upset by what we have done, be upset at me.
County Executive did not do this.
The village mayor did not do this.
The city mayor did not make these decisions.
I made these decisions.
I made them because I believe they are
in the best interest of the state.
I know they cause disruption.
I know people are upset.
I know businesses will be hurt by this.
My judgment is do whatever's necessary
to contain this virus.
The buck stops on my desk.
- [JENA] I'm scared of losing my job
and not having a job to come back to
and not being able to afford my rent.
I don't know what I'm gonna be doing
and can I pay you in a month?
Like, I don't fucking know!
I'm not okay 'cause I can't go home.
My grandmother is 89 and she's not
in the best of health right now.
So I couldn't... like, I can't see my mom
because my mom and my aunts are her caretakers,
so I can't do that.
If we can't work,
I can't pay rent unless they fucking freeze it,
so I don't know.
I am spending all this energy,
doing what I thought was changing
my entire career trajectory,
and maybe it still is, but like...
I'm building this future for myself
and I was finally starting to see it.
And, uh... I'm watching that walk away too.
My entire industry got laid off in a day.
The unemployment website crashed
so nobody could get through.
For an industry that's used
to being the ones taking care of people,
to ask to be taken care of...
it's fucking scary.
- I saw that today.
- I want to vomit.
I just felt my stomach drop.
Nine months of this? Nine months?
What's gonna happen?
None of these jobs are gonna look the same way.
None of our infrastructure is gonna be the same.
What about our interpersonal relationships?
Like, how the hell do you even do that?
I have a couple friends that are looking
at the silver lining of this
and I understand a little bit of what they're saying
and I think I would understand it more
if I felt more stable.
Like if my job was something
I could do from home, like theirs are.
They're like, "Isn't it interesting
that it's the only time
we're ever gonna get to slow down at the same time."
Okay.
But for me, I don't feel like I am slowing down.
I feel like I'm picking up momentum
in another direction
because I don't know what happens if I don't.
Like, I can't just sit here
and take the unemployment.
That's not me.
- [GAIL] At some point, there's no more change in the jar.
The well is running dry.
And it's like knowing
that you're going to be smacking into a brick wall,
but you cannot change your course.
From a perspective of stress,
we're not meant to live like that
where we have a constant level of anxiety.
that really wreaks havoc on your hormones,
your brain chemistry,
your immune system.
You can literally worry yourself sick.
You have the economic loss.
You even have the issue of,
"Alright, well shit, my restaurant is closed.
Now what do I do?
Who am I now, what am I doing?
How do I define myself?
And it triggers things in people.
I mean, to have that mat pulled out from under them
is bad to begin with,
but if you've got trauma associated
from having losses like that, that's a problem.
[ambulance siren wailing]
- What was I exposed to when I was working?
Even if we do reopen, who's gonna come out?
Are we still going to operate at like, 50% capacity?
Are people gonna have money to spend?
Are they're gonna want to go
and sit in a restaurant after this?
Are we gonna want to be near people?
I don't fucking know.
And then what's that gonna do for our anxiety
on the serving standpoint?
Are we gonna want to...
Are we gonna want to go back to a job where
we're essentially on the frontlines
without being recognized for being on the frontlines?
Because quite literally every day
I touch something someone had their mouth on.
So, what does that look like?
- [MOLLY] I'm kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I'm waiting for something really shitty to happen
and that is where I think my financial stress has come from.
Is waiting for like,
"Fuck, they're just gonna cut it all off."
They're gonna, you know...
"We've run out of money and we're done. Goodbye."
And then I'm fucked.
- [JENA] It's hard not to feel shafted.
And it's also hard, on the same token, to not feel like,
I mean, this is what we do.
We take care of people.
So the fact that we're taking care of people
by not taking care of people is pretty indicative
of what the hospitality community does.
We've already bailed out the banks twice and whatever else,
and it's fucking true.
It's like, when are we gonna bail out the little guys?
When are we going to bail out the businesses
that you love to go to?
It's astronomical, the amount of restaurants
that are in the city
and like, what it takes
to even make it a year as a restaurant,
versus what it takes to make it
as many years as a lot of these places have been open.
And then to watch that go away in a matter of days...
it's fucking rough.
I went to bed at 9:00 the other day,
which is really rare for me,
just because I couldn't stay awake.
Physically, I'm fine.
I mean, I know that's a sign of depression,
so that's why I've been trying to sit outside
because, you know, at the very least,
a little vitamin D might go a long way.
You know, I don't hear my neighbors anymore.
I just hear sirens.
[ambulance siren wailing]
- [GAIL] Falling asleep early,
all that stress is definitely, it's tiresome.
It makes you very fatigued.
Sleep is a place where you can go,
where if you're lucky,
maybe your brain will shut for just a little while.
Depression is very close to anxiety.
Very often people that are anxious are also depressed,
people that are depressed are also very anxious.
- It's hard that a lot of us don't want to get up anymore
and do it.
I really didn't want to for the past couple of days,
but I've been trying to make myself do creative stuff
and work stuff and focus on something.
- The larger question is,
"Well, how do I come out of this?
What if my restaurant doesn't reopen?
What if my bar doesn't reopen? What next?"
So on top of it, people need to start to think about,
"How am I going to survive?
What do I do here?
How am I going to reinvent myself?"
- [JENA] I've always wanted my own cooking cocktail show.
So, fuck it, I'm gonna do it.
I don't know how to do it,
but I'm gonna figure it out.
- And I got 13 minutes 'till I need to make sure
I'm logged in and watching her.
- I took a quarter of a Xanax about an hour ago
'cause yeah, it felt a little heavy and I have to perform.
So, this feels a little nutty
to be totally done up
and in my apartment with no shoes on.
And yeah, I was like,
"Well, I already committed to doing this
so I better fucking do it."
So, I'm going to, first off,
I'm going to show you how to make a honey syrup
because I feel like we all have some honey in our cupboards.
Yeah. Happy Wednesday!
Little workout for you there.
And I'm gonna put four ice cubes in here
and grab my lid and shake.
[ice cubes rattling]
Right on into my rocks glass. Cheers!
Today feels like a bourbon day.
So, I'm gonna use an ounce and a half of Old Forester.
This is their 86.
- I just use liquid as my paint palette.
I'm lucky in that I can keep doing it here.
And I'm going to...
I've been filming these videos
which people seem to be liking,
and that's letting me share that part
and like, how you can make things fancy,
but you're at home.
Just kinda sell the fantasy here.
So, why don't I just go ahead
and put on something fun
and show you how to make a drink
you wanna make.
Make you forget where you are.
And I didn't think I was doing a public service
until I started getting messages from people
that were like, "Thank you, I look forward to these.
This is like, what I want to be watching right now."
It's giving me a focus.
Right over the top,
with the outside facing up.
To the perfect Manhattan!
My friend Willie,
who works at Diamond Dogs,
he's a rapper.
So he was like, "Yo, by the time I'm done with this
I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have two albums."
- The financial...
that shit sucks.
I'm used to being broke.
I'll figure it out.
I'm Black in America.
I'm not gonna complain about that shit.
I'll make it work.
We always fucking have.
Okay, so I have one album recorded.
I have two albums written.
So altogether three.
Three albums that are almost completed
in some form over this.
Music is what I do when I'm not at work
and I'm not at work.
Okay, this is what you always say you want to do.
You say you want to do it.
You've been on tour.
You put out the records,
get the pat on the back.
You have a little bit of fan base.
You say you want to do it,
but you don't have enough time.
Every day you say you want to do it,
you don't have enough time.
Congratulations, motherfucker.
Here's what you have. Time.
♪ Only half of my tragedy is true and a half ♪
♪ Only half of it is used and it's not a mirror ♪
♪ I'm shaking your hand proving ♪
♪ I'm not the world's biggest liar ♪
♪ Whose pants on fire like half these kids in high school ♪
♪ I know, call me stupid leads me to tics ♪
♪ but they're proving stupid is multicolored ♪
♪ and that's more realistic ♪
♪ than what's in between the index and thumb ♪
♪ is okay instead of nothing ♪
So I'll take my stool, usually set up my phone
and play the same beat for over an hour
and basically scream like a mad man into the sky
as I work on the lyrics.
The neighbors don't like it, but fuck 'em.
I'm just saying that because
that's the type of person I am, fuck 'em anyway,
plus I'm moving.
So fuck 'em.
Like, what are you gonna do? Complain about my...
Complain to my landlord?
Eat shit, I don't care. Fuck it.
You might hear something you like.
And if it comes out out of
somebody's radio, somebody's car,
you go, "Man, I remember I used to live
right below this asshole. That's him."
♪ The terrible truth, clothed and naked ♪
♪ but won't accept that the slings of arrows ♪
♪ pushing him into an anti-hero positions in the worst way ♪
♪ but life's a bitch ♪
I reverted back to something an art teacher in high school
called an "art attack."
It's what you just need to do something creative.
You have to get it out while it's there.
- I'm doing something kind of similar as you.
We've been recording and interviewing and documenting.
And that provides us a way to do some skills that we have
that we feel may be able to help
if someone can watch these interviews,
a year later or two years later,
whenever it comes out.
And that's been keeping my mind sane.
- I mean, a lot of us fell into this industry
to supplement something else.
And the longer that you're in it
or the more you decide to become part of this industry,
you don't always get to keep the rest of yourself active.
What's happening right now
with me and Mike, Willie
you took some creative people,
who get to be creative
when they have the time to be creative.
You gave them the time to be creative
because you don't have time to do anything else.
You feel guilty taking advantage of this time,
and then you feel guilty if you don't,
but then you get paralyzed
by the idea that like, people are dying.
People you know are dying.
[somber music]
- [JENA] My friend's cousin passed away
and that always hits home.
My friend's mom has stage four lung cancer
and just tested positive, um...
and she's only been outside twice in two months.
My friend I talked to last night,
her grandmother is in assisted living
and she's in lockdown in her room
'cause one of the aides had it and gave it to someone.
I got an email from my boss saying
that one of our co-workers from one of our locations
just passed away.
He just died at Elmhurst today.
So it just like, feels like a gut punch every other minute.
- My buddy Jeff lost his mom.
My buddy Victor lost his stepfather.
And the list just kept growing
and kept growing
and it just adds to the anxiety
that the death happening
was very prominent, especially here in Queens.
There've been a lot of people near
and dear to us
that have been losing family members left and right.
The death is prominent
and the financial is, it's like insult to injury.
It's just like
that knife that just twists in you.
- It's stressful.
It's lonely.
It doesn't feel natural.
It doesn't feel like this is the way
things are supposed to be.
Trying to talk myself out of
falling into a, uh...
a vortex of depression and despair over it.
I already have depression.
I'm treated for it.
And I know what happens in the past,
what has happened when I tend to let the vortex take over
and I don't want to get to that point.
It's just not a good place for me to be.
- You have the anxiety of... people are really dying.
And for me I'm like, people are really dying
and all my family's over 700 miles away.
So, I have no job.
Not sure what type of money is coming in next.
Not sure if I'm gonna get sick.
If somebody else gets sick,
I have to watch them get sick through a camera phone.
It's like being kidnapped.
When my aunt passed it was just like...
You gotta, you know...
I don't know, I haven't processed yet.
You know, she was... she was elderly.
So, that's supposed to make it sound good with statistics.
Like, statistics, you know...
Like, reading statistics will help you hold back tears.
It doesn't. But I haven't processed it yet.
We're still in the middle of the firefight.
- [REPORTER] Mental health and illness
often are underfunded
and under treated in the American healthcare system.
Those concerns are especially magnified now
during this extended period of self-isolation,
quarantines and shutdowns.
- I'll talk to friends who have similar...
similar mindsets or struggles with mental health.
Knowing that you're not alone in it
and knowing that other people are feeling similar
or having their own struggles
and maybe can help out with something with that.
I don't know, but it's important to talk to people, I think.
When things get really bad in your head,
you got to reach out and got to talk to somebody.
Nobody knows how to handle this right now.
- [MOLLY] I won't go by the skate park.
I won't go by the track.
That's insane.
There are always at least, like
a hundred people on the track.
I don't begrudge anybody for going outside at all,
but I don't understand why
certain people don't seem
to be really taking this seriously.
And it's bothersome because
how are we going to get past this
if we all don't do what we're supposed to do?
[somber music]
- [JENA] You don't wanna be near people.
You don't wanna touch people.
You feel like you might be infected.
Seeing people without masks on the street,
it hits that part of my head again
that's like, fight or flight.
- [JENA] I was kinda hoping I had some antibodies. [laughs]
There's a little peace of mind in knowing
that I'm not consciously carrying it around.
I can't believe that I wasn't exposed to it.
Like, I'm really baffled.
- [REPORTER] Across New York,
the rate of hospitalizations is falling,
giving a glimmer of hope
the worst could be over.
- We were absolutely on the trajectory
for overwhelming the capacity of the healthcare system,
and it was only because the actions were taken
to limit social interaction,
that it was able to stop.
- [DR. GELCETER] Definitely helped.
You just imagine sitting elbow-to-elbow
with somebody and somebody coughs.
You hear it all the time.
People start sneezing.
That will infect a large number of people.
So, close proximity and one sick person
puts a lot of people at risk.
So, closing close proximity businesses
will obviously diminish the risk of people
infecting other people.
- The worst case scenario
is we would have run out of
equipment, space and personnel to care for the sick.
And then you have people dying needlessly.
- [REPORTER] A landmark day here in New York.
After nearly three months of stay at home orders,
the city is entering phase one of reopening.
- We bent the curve.
We intended to flatten to get to a plateau.
We bent it and look at the rest of the country.
We are curve benders.
- I keep it going.
I keep the sacrifice going.
I don't give a shit.
I don't want anyone to come in here
and get sick and spread it to their loved ones.
I don't, I don't care.
It sucks. It hurts.
It's more important
that we have our regulars to come back to us
when we're finally in the clear of all this.
- Since the collapse of the hospitality industry,
I've been moonlighting as a delivery person
and I can't tell you how many times
I've delivered to hospitals,
I've delivered to just residential,
and how many times folks will say to me,
"Thank you so much for doing this."
And at first I'm just like,
"I'm not doing anything.
I'm just delivering your food."
And they're like,
"No, you're helping us all stay afloat."
- I don't care how long it takes.
I want to be able to give our regulars massive hugs
when this is all done.
Financially,
fuck it, we're gonna hold on as long as we can.
I'm gonna fight tooth and nail to keep this place alive.
- It's a lot to tell somebody that,
today your life is going regular
and tomorrow your life just isn't that.
And it wasn't your fault.
Like none of this is your fault,
but by you not being able to do what you do,
it keeps this from happening.
I don't know if we're heroes,
the fact that you have to deal with it.
It's crazy and thank you for it.
Thank you for frontline workers for saying that.
I truly appreciate that.
'Cause I still got people telling me to get a real job.
- [JENA] When it's not your industry
and you're able to sit in front of your laptop
and then go out,
I think your perspective is a little different than mine
or somebody that works at the hospital or the grocery store
or somebody who owned a pilates studio.
That's a very special kind of insulation
to not, for a second,
wonder what the cost is,
not just physically,
but mentally to the people
that are gonna be getting us back to normal.
And I don't know the answer to any of that.
I know that I've been really tired the past couple of days,
and I know that I have no business being tired
so I'm probably just depressed.
- [JON] Bars are a part of the metropolitan network of
entities and artistic organizations
and businesses that draw people to cities,
and that's a really
complexly organized system.
So, people who come to New York to act on Broadway,
they get a job as a waiter.
Or, people who come to play music,
get a job as a bartender.
And so in that way,
all of these different aspects of life in New York,
the things that bring people to New York:
metropolitan life, cosmopolitan life, the arts,
nightlife all of this stuff,
they're interwoven with each other.
Once you take bars and restaurants out of that,
they're a huge employer of artists.
What's gonna happen to the artists?
- When people needed money to bury a relative,
the local bar helped.
Places when you couldn't afford a wedding chapel,
the local bar helped.
When you didn't have food at the crib,
the kitchen gave you what they had.
Your kid's first job is a dishwasher here.
It's one of the structures of American life
from the 20th century that we all know means something,
but we all take for granted.
- You may end up with a situation like the 1970s,
where there was a lot
of amazing underground art being produced
in rundown sections of the city.
If you recall what the Lower East Side used to be like
and it gave birth to punk and all kinds
of incredible artistic activities.
And so it's conceivable that a New York hollowed out
by the virus could end up generating
that kind of original,
vivid, vibrant underground art.
I'm optimistic that art will find a way.
It's its own weird kind of virus that we can't live without,
and that it will find its way
even in a city that's been ravaged by the virus.
- We've had so much death around us here in Queens.
I will gladly continue to take that financial hit
If it means the people we love get to keep their loved ones.
I mean, money is money.
It'll be replaced at some point I hope,
but the loved ones
that are currently hooked up,
deteriorating as we say this.
That our friends were saying like,
"Please keep us in your thoughts."
How do you remedy that?
- What's the landscape gonna be like afterwards?
I expect really that there is going to be a big uptick
in people that have depression, anxiety,
have prolonged PTSD.
10, 20% of the population
will have longer-term symptomatology
that's in line with PTSD from this.
- [WILLIE] I'll say it flat out,
you're a real asshole
if you're only thinking about yourself right now.
We're not all suffering the same way,
but not everybody you know is doing alright,
unless you're that fucking fortunate.
Then God bless you, you distant motherfucker.
- [GAIL] I also suspect that there's gonna
be an increase in suicides.
There's gonna be an increase in substance use disorders.
And I think this is gonna resonate with people
for a long while.
Normal is a very big room right about now.
Whatever you're feeling, it's okay.
It's okay.
It's normal right now not to feel normal.
We're in very abnormal situation.
So, I think that people on the whole
should go easy on themselves.
- [NICCI] Those who want to come back
are going to be risking their lives,
not knowing the development of this disease going forward,
this virus going forward.
So, anybody who really has the balls to come back
to the hospitality industry,
I personally will greet them with open arms
because they are going to be putting their life on the line
because we don't know the progression of this virus.
- I don't know what our industry is gonna look like
or feel like, but I don't want to go back
to something that isn't ready,
that isn't human
and that isn't set up for us to survive.
- [REPORTER 1] New York, the original epicenter,
seeing a troubling new rise.
- [CUOMO] We're going to closing indoor dining
in New York City.
Federal government must provide relief
to these bars and restaurants.
- [REPORTER 2] Small businesses
will face restrictions once again.
- [REPORTER 3] Another shutdown would be devastating.
- They're all washing their hands of it.
"Oh, we feel bad for you.
Most of you are gonna lose your businesses,
but you've got to take one for the team."
- A lot of people in all these businesses lost a lot.
- [REPORTER 4] 140,000 restaurant workers
are currently unemployed.
A shutdown will leave 90,000 more without jobs.
- Having to do this again, it is a slow death
to our industry and to this great city.
- We take care of people
and it's hard that we need to be taking care of and
we don't know if we're gonna be.
[somber music]
[emotional guitar music]
- It's weird because I miss being social.
I miss the aspect of drinking with people.
- Yeah.
- And I mean, so again, driveway sits happen.
Occasionally rooftop sits and stuff like that.
- I haven't also 'cause it's like,
I don't need to be spending money on going out
if I don't have a job.
- This is so weird.
I've lived a life. - This is fine.
- I've seen some things, we're good.
- Seen plenty of things.
- This is what we do now.
- Yeah. I've lived, I've loved, I've feared.
I don't even know how to date. It's been...
- I don't know how to date either.
- Have you? Zoom dated?
- Kind of. It's kind of weird.
It's like, cocktail in hand and just chatting. It's weird.
- Yeah.
- It's just weird. Zooms are weird.
- But you've done it?
- Yeah.
- 'Cause my mom point blank was like, "So are you dating?"
And I spit out my coffee and was like,
"Yes, mother, I had been home alone for 104 days by myself.
That's how dating works."
We're never getting laid again.
- Life in the time of COVID.