Albany woman Samm Blake on life at the epicentre of the pandemic in New York City

Samm Blake runs in the evenings, when the streets are quiet. At the epicentre of a global crisis, she explores her adopted home city of New York, jogging through its sprawling boroughs in the mask she wears whenever she leaves her apartment. Times Square, one of the world’s best-known and busiest tourist destinations, is almost empty in the middle of the day. The iconic NYC subway system is shut down every night — the first such closure since the subway started running 116 years ago. “In the past week, I have finally felt like it was safe enough to venture back into Manhattan,” Ms Blake said. “I went on a long run weaving through the Lower East Side, Soho, the financial district — it was all so quiet. “As I passed Broadway, which is a super busy shopping street, all the businesses were boarded up and there was barely a person around. “It really felt like Manhattan is a ghost town right now.” Ms Blake was born and raised in Albany, the daughter of Dylans on the Terrace owners Morris and Gwen Blake. She left the city after high school to pursue her passion for photography. Now 36, she has lived in the US since 2013, plying her trade as an award-winning photographer who has been named one of the world’s top 10 wedding photographers by American Photo Magazine. She photographs high-profile celebrities, speaks at conferences and gets paid to travel the globe. But that has all ground to a halt since COVID-19 reached the Big Apple, causing the historic city to groan under the strain of the biggest global health emergency since the 1918 Spanish flu. It seems the worst has passed for NYC, with daily deaths dropping in recent weeks, but New Yorkers are taking their optimism with a generous serving of caution. More than 20,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the city, with the severity of the situation highlighted by shocking pictures beamed around the world of makeshift mass graves on Hart Island. Ms Blake is sure she had the virus in March, describing it as the sickest she had ever felt. At that point, however, the city’s hospitals were near breaking point, testing was very limited and she never considered herself sick enough to seek emergency help. The first sign came on one of her runs in mid-March, when she found herself having to stop to catch her breath. She developed a dry cough the next day. “I started to experience a fever and chills — that came and went over the next two days,” she said. “The worst symptom I had was an intense muscle ache over my entire body, along with a constant headache and a feeling of pressure on my back, like someone was sitting on it. I was told to presume I have it and seek medical assistance if need arises.” Her husband Kerry O’Connor’s sickness was even worse, leaving him bedridden for two weeks with chills, body aches and a tight chest. Right now, the couple are supposed to be on their honeymoon, exploring Yellowstone National Park in a camper van. Ms Blake should be returning to NYC to run the Brooklyn Half Marathon this weekend. But those plans have been postponed. At 7pm every night in NYC, people come to their windows to clap and cheer out of gratitude to the city’s frontline workers. But beneath the optimism and gratitude, the harsh reality is that thousands of people have lost their jobs. Many Australians and other international workers left the city when the lockdowns started coming into effect. Lines stretch around city blocks as people queue to get into the smattering of stores that are allowed to remain open. With most of her income generated by wedding photography, Ms Blake is not sure how much work she will get for the rest of the year, if any at all. She said New York governor Andrew Cuomo had imparted a sense of unity and calm on the city with his daily briefings. As for the US Federal Government’s response — “that’s a completely different story,” she said. With plenty of time on her hands, she has started volunteering at a local soup kitchen, where she packages food for medical workers, the disadvantaged and the homeless. “I have so much free time right now, I wish I could be of better use to my community,” she said. “I wish there was more I could do. But I’m glad I can finally put my years of working at Dylans to good use at the soup kitchen.”