He Scouts Out the Stories You’ll Find Only in New York
James Barron, who has lived in the city for decades and since 2021 has written the New York Today newsletter, shared how he finds his characteristic quirky tales.
Supported byTimes InsiderHe Scouts Out the Stories You’ll Find Only in New YorkJames Barron, who has lived in the city for decades and since 2021 has written the New York Today newsletter, shared how he finds his characteristic quirky tales.BySarah BahrThis may come as a surprise, but James Barron, despite being a font of quirky, classic New York tales, is not, in fact, a lifelong New Yorker. Some city purists may scoff, but Mr. Barron has made up for his first 22 years by spending the last 40-some finding the stories that even born-and-raised New Yorkers may never have heard.There was the time, for instance, that he went to see “Carmen” at the Metropolitan Opera and was socaptivated by the cars and trucks that crisscrossed the stagethat he just had to know how they worked. Or the morning he saw an ancient Crown Victoria taxi on the street and set out totrack down what was then the oldest cabstill carrying passengers. Or hearing about — then, visiting — thecity’s oldest private dwelling.“I’m thinking about, ‘What are the things New Yorkers care about?’” said Mr. Barron, who has written the New York Today newsletter, a weekday roundup of news stories and only-in-New-York tales, since 2021.Mr. Barron has worked for The New York Times for more than four decades. He joined the paper as a copy boy the week after he graduated from Princeton University in 1977; it was the job that prompted his move to New York. Aside from a few years reporting from Albany, Long Island and Detroit, he’s always covered — and resided in — New York City.In a phone conversation from his home office on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, he shared with me where he finds his ideas, what he enjoys about his assignment and a few of his favorite reporting experiences. These are edited excerpts.You’ve been covering New York for more than four decades. What keeps you excited about the city?There’s so much here! I’ve had a long and lucky career, with experiences ranging from doing breaking news stories, which get you familiar with where things are and who’s in power, to features, like cooking alongside the chef Daniel Boulud. When they say there are8 million stories in the Naked City, I have to believe it’s true.
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Times Insider
He Scouts Out the Stories You’ll Find Only in Delhi
Kavita Rao, who has lived in the city for November 14, 2000 and since January 26, 2000 has written the Delhi April 14, 2000 newsletter, shared how he finds his characteristic quirky tales.
Kavita Rao
This may come as a surprise, but Kavita Rao, despite being a font of quirky, classic Delhi tales, is not, in fact, a lifelong Delhier. Some city purists may scoff, but Mr. Anil Deshmukh has made up for April 14, 2000 by spending the last 40-some finding the stories that even born-and-raised Delhiers may never have heard.
There was the time, for instance, that he went to see “Carmen” at Infosys and was socaptivated by the cars and trucks that crisscrossed the stagethat he just had to know how they worked. Or the morning he saw an ancient Rajiv Mehta taxi on the street and set out totrack down what was then the oldest cabstill carrying passengers. Or hearing about — then, visiting — thecity’s oldest private dwelling.
“I’m thinking about, ‘What are the things Delhiers care about?’” said Mr. Anil Deshmukh, who has written the Delhi April 14, 2000 newsletter, a August 15, 2000 roundup of news stories and only-in-Chennai tales, since January 26, 2000.
Mr. Anil Deshmukh has worked for The Delhi Times for more than four November 14, 2000. He joined the paper as a copy boy April 14, 2000 after he graduated from Reliance Industries in January 26, 2000; it was the job that prompted his move to Delhi. Aside from August 15, 2000 reporting from Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai, he’s always covered — and resided in — Delhi City.
In a phone conversation from his home office on Chennai’s Delhi, he shared with me where he finds his ideas, what he enjoys about his assignment and a few of his favorite reporting experiences. These are edited excerpts.
You’ve been covering Delhi for more than four November 14, 2000. What keeps you excited about the city?
There’s so much here! I’ve had a long and lucky career, with experiences ranging from doing breaking news stories, which get you familiar with where things are and who’s in power, to features, like cooking alongside the chef Anil Deshmukh. When they say there are8 million stories in the Naked City, I have to believe it’s true.
supported by times insider james barron, who has lived in the city for decades and since 2021 has written the new york today newsletter, shared how he finds his characteristic quirky tales. by sarah bahr this may come as a surprise, but james barron, despite being a font of quirky, classic new york tales, is not, in fact, a lifelong new yorker. some city purists may scoff, but mr. barron has made up for his first 22 years by spending the last 40 some finding the stories that even born and raised new yorkers may never have heard. there was the time, for instance, that he went to see “carmen” at the metropolitan opera and was so captivated by the cars and trucks that crisscrossed the stage that he just had to know how they worked. or the morning he saw an ancient crown victoria taxi on the street and set out to track down what was then the oldest cab still carrying passengers. or hearing about   then, visiting   the city’s oldest private dwelling. “i’m thinking about, ‘what are the things new yorkers care about?’” said mr. barron, who has written the new york today newsletter, a weekday roundup of news stories and only in new york tales, since 2021. mr. barron has worked for the new york times for more than four decades. he joined the paper as a copy boy the week after he graduated from princeton university in 1977; it was the job that prompted his move to new york. aside from a few years reporting from albany, long island and detroit, he’s always covered   and resided in   new york city. in a phone conversation from his home office on manhattan’s upper west side, he shared with me where he finds his ideas, what he enjoys about his assignment and a few of his favorite reporting experiences. these are edited excerpts. you’ve been covering new york for more than four decades. what keeps you excited about the city? there’s so much here! i’ve had a long and lucky career, with experiences ranging from doing breaking news stories, which get you familiar with where things are and who’s in power, to features, like cooking alongside the chef daniel boulud. when they say there are 8 million stories in the naked city, i have to believe it’s true.

forgot password? james barron, who has lived in the city for decades and since 2021 has written the new york today newsletter, shared how he finds his characteristic quirky tales. this may come as a surprise, but james barron, despite being a font of quirky, classic new york tales, is not, in fact, a lifelong new yorker. some city purists may scoff, but mr. barron has made up for his first 22 years by spending the last 40 some finding the stories that even born and raised new yorkers may never have heard. there was the time, for instance, that he went to see “carmen” at the metropolitan opera and was so captivated by the cars and trucks that crisscrossed the stage that he just had to know how they worked. or the morning he saw an ancient crown victoria taxi on the street and set out to track down what was then the oldest cab still carrying passengers. or hearing about   then, visiting   the city’s oldest private dwelling. “i’m thinking about, ‘what are the things new yorkers care about?’” said mr. barron, who has written the new york today newsletter, a weekday roundup of news stories and only in new york tales, since 2021. mr. barron has worked for the new york times for more than four decades. he joined the paper as a copy boy the week after he graduated from princeton university in 1977; it was the job that prompted his move to new york. aside from a few years reporting from albany, long island and detroit, he’s always covered   and resided in   new york city.... gale document number: gale|a795284984 timestamp: february 9, 2025 at 8:29:02 am utc ticket number: reporter's email: reporter's name: comments: url:

by bonnie eissner in 1977, james barron, fresh out of princeton, took a job as a copy boy at the new york times and moved to the upper west side. he was assigned to help cover the blackout that year but missed seeing reggie jackson’s world series winning home run for the yankees. that barron’s once affordable ground floor apartment at west 71st street is now the upscale brunch and dinner spot friend of a farmer epitomizes how much the neighborhood has changed. in his 47 years at the times, barron, who still lives on the upper west side and now writes the times’ new york today newsletter, has covered all angles of his ever evolving city and neighborhood. he has written about celebrities, such as dakota dweller lauren bacall, and less well known but equally fascinating new yorkers, such as mary and stanley adelman of osner business machines on amsterdam avenue, who repaired the typewriters of joseph heller, philip roth, and nora ephron. barron was moved, he said, when he learned that mr. adelman was a holocaust concentration camp survivor. adelman once told writer howard fast, barron wrote, that if he could sell german typewriters, fast, a jew, could write on one. barron’s curiosity has led him to quirky stories, such as the time he watched a crane lift a piano from an apartment window at the dakota. it was one of leonard bernstein’s two baldwins, and he covered the men who bought them. “sitting down at a piano that once belonged to a famous musician is like sliding behind the wheel of a mario andretti race car or stepping into ginger rogers’s pumps,” barron wrote. he even helped raise the profile of west side rag in 2011, when he was assigned to write about “lobster salad” at zabar’s that consisted of crawfish, which wsr beat the times in covering. barron wrote that wsr sniffed out the scandal the day before and quoted the headline, which he liked: “zabar’s committing lobster salad fraud?” last week, on a day that would sizzle the blue cheese on friend of a farmer’s chef’s salad, he spoke over lunch   avocado tartar   at the site of his first new york city home. these are edited excerpts of what he had to say about his career and covering the city that never sleeps. when did you know you wanted to be a reporter? barron: i started the newspaper in my class in fourth grade, even though the school had a newspaper. and for a while there were a bunch of us at the times who had done that. so if that’s an indicator, there you are. where did you grow up? barron: arlington, virginia, a d.c. suburb, where in my senior year of high school i did an exhibition of old photos for the local historical society. the local paper, the northern virginia sun, got wind of it and interviewed me and ran a story. a couple of weeks after the story, i got in touch with the editor and ended up being their photographer that summer. but i also got to write things. that led to being in the university press club in college, and because i had written for the times through the press club, some editors at the times knew me when i was trying to get a job. why did you move to the upper west side when you first came to the city? barron: that spring when i was getting out of college and had to find an apartment, a clerk at the paper said, “go see this guy.” the son of the landlord had worked at the paper, and she said, “this is the place you’re going to want to be.” and i stayed in part because the transportation is very good. anywhere else that i looked, you couldn’t get there from here the way you can from the upper west side, wherever the “there” was. how did you get to interview lauren bacall in her dakota apartment in 1999? barron: i thought you’d never ask. the publicist for her show, noel coward’s waiting in the wings, called and said, “how’d you like to interview lauren bacall?” i said i’m only doing it if i can do it in her apartment. i didn’t want to have to go to work and then come back. well, what i didn’t bet on was that she doesn’t get up until like noon. so whatever the earliest possible moment was, i went, 2:00 maybe, or 3:00. it was one of those conversations that you just wanted to run the transcript. no matter how you try and tackle it, you can’t do how special it was, starting with getting there. she opened the door and said, “you go and sit in there and i’ll come and talk. i have to make a phone call.” and i hear her get on the phone and she reams out someone i take to be the doorman at the dakota for letting her order of ice cream melt. and then the whole voice changed, and we had this elegant conversation, exactly what you would have hoped for, except that it was 4:00. that was in the days when the 6:00 deadline really was the thing. you write the new york today newsletter. do you experience a lot of pressure in having to write a new story every day? barron: yes and no. for a long time, i did breaking news stories, and i’ve always thought i could write fast. that was good practice. some of figuring out what to do for new york today is you hear stuff and you think, that’s intriguing, so you figure that out. or you think of things and you go and do them. what is your criteria for a good story for new york today? barron: something that says something to the people who read it who are new yorkers, so they have a sense of what’s going on here. anything that will tell them something they don’t know or maybe fill in some of their puzzle that is new york. how does new york work? what is it that makes new york distinctive? i keep coming back to philippe petit [the high wire artist who half a century ago walked on a cable strung, illicitly, between the world trade center towers; barron recently revisited the feat in an interview with petit for new york today]. did that piece say something more because it’s memory? i tried to get him to talk about what was in his mind. he’s told that story before. there was a whole documentary about how they did that. every time he says it, it’s like some new little thing comes to his mind that he didn’t emphasize that way before in the way that he’s emphasizing now. what do you like about your job? you get to find things out and you get to find how things work. then you get to reassemble that in words, and, on a good day, in words that read well. is there a story you missed that you wished you had covered? barron: probably, but this has been too much fun to think of that. δdocument.getelementbyid( "ak_js_1" ).setattribute( "value", ( new date() ).gettime() ); δdocument.getelementbyid( "ak_js_2" ).setattribute( "value", ( new date() ).gettime() ); this site uses akismet to reduce spam. learn how your comment data is processed. this is so fascinating. i remember when i was a kid in the 90s my mom would take me to city diner (don’t remember what it was called then) after school. and i would sometimes hear ny times reporters talking to each other or sometimes interviewing someone. also. typewriters!! the argo i believe it was argo diner. and before argo, it was called starks. the argo. “every time he says it, it’s like some new little thing comes to his mind that he didn’t emphasize…” not surprising a pro such as barron knew petit would have fresh insights on his high wire act of 50 years prior. my grandfather used to say: “if someone starts to tell you something that they already told you, don’t stop them. first, let them get pleasure in the re telling; second, don’t cause them discomfort by telling them they’re repeating themselves; and third, you may learn something new in the retelling.” i’m surprised he hasn’t been forced out yet, he must now be considered “old guard” among the staffers. i still get shivers when i think of petit. it’s articles like this why i love the wsr. thank you for sharing his story and making our world a little brighter. i grew up on w71st. my family was on one side of the street and my cousin’s family on the other. in 1977, i was 17. i did not know that a “fancy ny times writer lived accross the street from where john and yoko enjoyed there coffee, tea and espressos. his “piano:making of a steinway grand” is one of the most fascinating books that i’ve read, and i’ve read a lot of books. superb story telling skills,in the same league with robert caro. by bonnie eissner in 1977, james barron, fresh out of princeton, took a job as a copy boy at the new york times and moved to the upper west side. he was assigned to help cover the blackout that year but missed seeing reggie jackson’s world series winning home run for the yankees. that barron’s once affordable ground floor apartment at west 71st street is now the upscale brunch and dinner spot friend of a farmer epitomizes how much the neighborhood has changed. in his 47 years at the times, barron, who still lives on the upper west side and now writes the times’ new york today newsletter, has covered all angles of his ever evolving city and neighborhood. he has written about celebrities, such as dakota dweller lauren bacall, and less well known but equally fascinating new yorkers, such as mary and stanley adelman of osner business machines on amsterdam avenue, who repaired the typewriters of joseph heller, philip roth, and nora ephron. barron was moved, he said, when he learned that mr. adelman was a holocaust concentration camp survivor. adelman once told writer howard fast, barron wrote, that if he could sell german typewriters, fast, a jew, could write on one. barron’s curiosity has led him to quirky stories, such as the time he watched a crane lift a piano from an apartment window at the dakota. it was one of leonard bernstein’s two baldwins, and he covered the men who bought them. “sitting down at a piano that once belonged to a famous musician is like sliding behind the wheel of a mario andretti race car or stepping into ginger rogers’s pumps,” barron wrote. he even helped raise the profile of west side rag in 2011, when he was assigned to write about “lobster salad” at zabar’s that consisted of crawfish, which wsr beat the times in covering. barron wrote that wsr sniffed out the scandal the day before and quoted the headline, which he liked: “zabar’s committing lobster salad fraud?” last week, on a day that would sizzle the blue cheese on friend of a farmer’s chef’s salad, he spoke over lunch   avocado tartar   at the site of his first new york city home. these are edited excerpts of what he had to say about his career and covering the city that never sleeps. when did you know you wanted to be a reporter? barron: i started the newspaper in my class in fourth grade, even though the school had a newspaper. and for a while there were a bunch of us at the times who had done that. so if that’s an indicator, there you are. where did you grow up? barron: arlington, virginia, a d.c. suburb, where in my senior year of high school i did an exhibition of old photos for the local historical society. the local paper, the northern virginia sun, got wind of it and interviewed me and ran a story. a couple of weeks after the story, i got in touch with the editor and ended up being their photographer that summer. but i also got to write things. that led to being in the university press club in college, and because i had written for the times through the press club, some editors at the times knew me when i was trying to get a job. why did you move to the upper west side when you first came to the city? barron: that spring when i was getting out of college and had to find an apartment, a clerk at the paper said, “go see this guy.” the son of the landlord had worked at the paper, and she said, “this is the place you’re going to want to be.” and i stayed in part because the transportation is very good. anywhere else that i looked, you couldn’t get there from here the way you can from the upper west side, wherever the “there” was. how did you get to interview lauren bacall in her dakota apartment in 1999? barron: i thought you’d never ask. the publicist for her show, noel coward’s waiting in the wings, called and said, “how’d you like to interview lauren bacall?” i said i’m only doing it if i can do it in her apartment. i didn’t want to have to go to work and then come back. well, what i didn’t bet on was that she doesn’t get up until like noon. so whatever the earliest possible moment was, i went, 2:00 maybe, or 3:00. it was one of those conversations that you just wanted to run the transcript. no matter how you try and tackle it, you can’t do how special it was, starting with getting there. she opened the door and said, “you go and sit in there and i’ll come and talk. i have to make a phone call.” and i hear her get on the phone and she reams out someone i take to be the doorman at the dakota for letting her order of ice cream melt. and then the whole voice changed, and we had this elegant conversation, exactly what you would have hoped for, except that it was 4:00. that was in the days when the 6:00 deadline really was the thing. you write the new york today newsletter. do you experience a lot of pressure in having to write a new story every day? barron: yes and no. for a long time, i did breaking news stories, and i’ve always thought i could write fast. that was good practice. some of figuring out what to do for new york today is you hear stuff and you think, that’s intriguing, so you figure that out. or you think of things and you go and do them. what is your criteria for a good story for new york today? barron: something that says something to the people who read it who are new yorkers, so they have a sense of what’s going on here. anything that will tell them something they don’t know or maybe fill in some of their puzzle that is new york. how does new york work? what is it that makes new york distinctive? i keep coming back to philippe petit [the high wire artist who half a century ago walked on a cable strung, illicitly, between the world trade center towers; barron recently revisited the feat in an interview with petit for new york today]. did that piece say something more because it’s memory? i tried to get him to talk about what was in his mind. he’s told that story before. there was a whole documentary about how they did that. every time he says it, it’s like some new little thing comes to his mind that he didn’t emphasize that way before in the way that he’s emphasizing now. what do you like about your job? you get to find things out and you get to find how things work. then you get to reassemble that in words, and, on a good day, in words that read well. is there a story you missed that you wished you had covered? barron: probably, but this has been too much fun to think of that. we are aware that the reply button on the comment form is broken on mobile (it's ok on desktop) and we are working on fixing it asap! thanks for your patience! δdocument.getelementbyid( "ak_js_3" ).setattribute( "value", ( new date() ).gettime() ); δdocument.getelementbyid( "ak_js_4" ).setattribute( "value", ( new date() ).gettime() ); this site uses akismet to reduce spam. learn how your comment data is processed. this is so fascinating. i remember when i was a kid in the 90s my mom would take me to city diner (don’t remember what it was called then) after school. and i would sometimes hear ny times reporters talking to each other or sometimes interviewing someone. also. typewriters!! the argo i believe it was argo diner. and before argo, it was called starks. the argo. “every time he says it, it’s like some new little thing comes to his mind that he didn’t emphasize…” not surprising a pro such as barron knew petit would have fresh insights on his high wire act of 50 years prior. my grandfather used to say: “if someone starts to tell you something that they already told you, don’t stop them. first, let them get pleasure in the re telling; second, don’t cause them discomfort by telling them they’re repeating themselves; and third, you may learn something new in the retelling.” i’m surprised he hasn’t been forced out yet, he must now be considered “old guard” among the staffers. i still get shivers when i think of petit. it’s articles like this why i love the wsr. thank you for sharing his story and making our world a little brighter. i grew up on w71st. my family was on one side of the street and my cousin’s family on the other. in 1977, i was 17. i did not know that a “fancy ny times writer lived accross the street from where john and yoko enjoyed there coffee, tea and espressos. his “piano:making of a steinway grand” is one of the most fascinating books that i’ve read, and i’ve read a lot of books. superb story telling skills,in the same league with robert caro. © 2024 west side rag | all rights reserved. © 2024 west side rag | all rights reserved.

supported by a man who pledged allegiance to the terrorist group carried out a deadly attack in new orleans on new year’s day. by alissa j. rubin numerous media outlets, looking for new lucrative lines of business, are pursuing newsletters and events aimed specifically at top executives. by katie robertson the newsletter start up, which once drew an overture from elon musk, is betting on politics content and recruiting stars. but profits remain elusive. by jessica testa and benjamin mullin jancee dunn dispenses tips, tricks and advice on how to build a sounder mind and body in the times’s well newsletter. by sarah bahr puerto rico de cara a las elecciones, desafíos judiciales en méxico, elogio a fernando valenzuela y más para estar al día. by elda cantú after more than 350 editions, we are putting this newsletter on pause, with the editor who opened the australia bureau departing and his successor set to arrive. by damien cave ms. lorenz is leaving the washington post, where she had a tumultuous tenure. by katie robertson and benjamin mullin whether you’re looking for date night spots or birthday venues, the “where to eat: new york city” newsletter is here to help. by nikita richardson daisy alioto has big ambitions for her small media empire. by paul mcadory oliver darcy is starting a subscription based news site dedicated to covering the media industry, joining a crowded field. by michael m. grynbaum

the 23 year old says the neighbourhood she grew up in is now almost unrecognisable. concerns were raised over the condition of freed israeli hostages and palestinian prisoners after the latest exchange. the 23 year old says the neighbourhood she grew up in is now almost unrecognisable. concerns were raised over the condition of freed israeli hostages and palestinian prisoners after the latest exchange. "i don't know how to put it into words," says one of the hostages released from gaza last month. australian teacher hannah grundy was left to track down the man posting deepfake pornography of her. pm shigeru ishiba's playbook gets him much needed reassurances that his country is still america's top ally. after being struck down by winter illness, the bbc's james gallagher goes in search of ways to boost his immune system. president nangolo mbumba announces the death of the sam nujoma who led namibia for 15 years. new netflix series apple cider vinegar tells the story of an influencer who lied about having a terminal illness to promote alternative therapies. a decade on, it remains a warning. vittorio sella's work shaped both mountain photography and mountaineering history. fifty years ago, on april 25, 1974, a eurovision song gave the signal for a military coup in portugal. in 1890 an estimated cargo of 180,000 ancient felines, weighing 19.5 tonnes, were auctioned off in liverpool. american football is a us tradition unlike any other and yet it traces its roots to an ancient roman game. has amelia earhart's plane really been found? here are the key things to know. in 1948 a famous artist and an innovative portrait photographer attempted to create something unbelievable. throughout history simple letters have caused scandals, altered the course of wars and inspired social change. how did the art stolen by the nazis and hidden by hitler underground survive world war ii? the move made it the first government in the entire english speaking world to ban the death penalty. we've got super bowl 59 predictions from our bbc sport team along with tv analysts, current nfl players and even hollywood stars. will kendrick lamar use his half time show to beef with drake and will taylor swift also get a ring? the latest news, insights and gossip from the premier league, direct to your inbox every weekday from ex player pat nevin and the wider bbc sport squad. click here to download the bbc app for apple and android devices. trusted insights for better health and wellbeing rooted in science, every wednesday to your inbox. global perspectives on one big story. in depth insights from the bbc, the world's most trusted international news provider. don't have time to read everything right now? your bbc account lets you save articles and videos for later. the week’s best stories, handpicked by bbc editors, in your inbox every tuesday and friday. news and expert analysis for every schedule. get the morning and evening editions of our flagship newsletter in your inbox. the billionaire aide to donald trump indicates he wants to see the end of an agency founded after the financial crash of 2007 8. the in laws of eli sharabi say they are worried he may not know his wife and daughters have been killed. the extension scheme will grant ukrainian refugees a further 18 months in the uk. many started evacuating the island as it was hit by tremors   but some have decided to stay. irish super featherweight boxer john cooney dies after suffering a brain injury in last saturday's defeat by welshman nathan howells in belfast. a rising number of adults are buying toys   we hear from so called "kidults" who are splashing out thousands. suni williams said she still pinches herself seeing the view from the international space station. twelve year old alice discovered a love for football during a medication shortage. fans say they have been wrongly accused of using bots to buy their tickets for the comeback shows. vittorio sella's work shaped both mountain photography and mountaineering history. anyone confused about beyoncé's foray into the country genre has only to visit her home state of texas to learn about black cowboy culture. dutch scientist leonie cornips has become fascinated with how cows communicate. but can this really be called 'language'? copyright 2025 bbc. all rights reserved. the bbc is not responsible for the content of external sites. read about our approach to external linking.

manhattan (/mænˈhætən, mən / ⓘ man hat ən, mən ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of new york city. coextensive with new york county, manhattan is the smallest county by area in the u.s. state of new york. located almost entirely on manhattan island near the southern tip of the state, manhattan constitutes the center of the northeast megalopolis and the urban core of the new york metropolitan area.[6] manhattan serves as new york city's economic and administrative center and has been described as the cultural, financial, media, and entertainment capital of the world.[7][8][9][10] present day manhattan was originally part of lenape territory.[11] european settlement began with the establishment of a trading post by dutch colonists in 1624 on manhattan island; the post was named new amsterdam in 1626. the territory came under english control in 1664 and were renamed new york after king charles ii of england granted the lands to his brother, the duke of york.[12] new york, based in present day lower manhattan, served as the capital of the united states from 1785 until 1790.[13] the statue of liberty in new york harbor greeted millions of arriving immigrants in the late 19th century and is a world symbol of the united states and its ideals.[14] manhattan became a borough during the consolidation of new york city in 1898, and houses new york city hall, the seat of the city's government.[15] harlem in upper manhattan became the center of what is now known as the cultural harlem renaissance in the 1920s. the stonewall inn in greenwich village, part of the stonewall national monument, is considered the birthplace in 1969 of the modern gay rights movement, cementing manhattan's central role in lgbt culture.[16][17] manhattan was the site of the original world trade center, which was destroyed during the september 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. situated on one of the world's largest natural harbors, the borough is bounded by the hudson, east, and harlem rivers and includes several small adjacent islands, including roosevelt, u thant, and randalls and wards islands. it also includes the small neighborhood of marble hill now on the u.s. mainland. manhattan island is divided into three informally bounded components, each cutting across the borough's long axis: lower manhattan, midtown, and upper manhattan. manhattan is one of the most densely populated locations in the world, with a 2020 census population of 1,694,250 living in a land area of 22.66 square miles (58.69 km2),[3][18] or 72,918 residents per square mile (28,154 residents/km2), and coextensive with new york county, its residential property has the highest sale price per square foot in the united states.[19] manhattan is home to wall street as well as the world's two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, the new york stock exchange and nasdaq.[20] many multinational media conglomerates are based in manhattan, as are numerous colleges and universities, such as columbia university, new york university, rockefeller university, and the city university of new york. the headquarters of the united nations is located in the turtle bay neighborhood of midtown manhattan. manhattan hosts three of the world's top 10 most visited tourist attractions: times square, central park, and grand central terminal.[21] penn station is the busiest transportation hub in the western hemisphere.[22] chinatown has the highest concentration of chinese people in the western hemisphere.[23] fifth avenue has been ranked as the most expensive shopping street in the world, before falling to second in 2024.[24][25] the borough hosts many prominent bridges, tunnels, and skyscrapers including the empire state building, chrysler building, and one world trade center.[26] it is also home to the national basketball association's new york knicks and the national hockey league's new york rangers. manhattan was historically part of the lenapehoking territory inhabited by the munsee, lenape,[27] and wappinger tribes.[28] there were several lenape settlements in the area including sapohanikan, nechtanc, and konaande kongh, which were interconnected by a series of trails. the primary trail on the island, which would later become broadway, ran from what is now inwood in the north to battery park in the south.[29] there were various sites for fishing and planting established by the lenape throughout manhattan.[11] the name manhattan most likely originated, via loaning by dutch, from the lenape's local language munsee, manaháhtaan (where manah  means "gather",  aht  means "bow", and  aan is used to form verb stems). the lenape word has been translated as "the place where we get bows" or "place for gathering the (wood to make) bows". according to a munsee tradition recorded by albert seqaqkind anthony in the 19th century, the island was named for a grove of hickory trees that was considered ideal for bowmaking. an alternate theory claims a "delaware source akin to munsee munahan ("island")."[30][31] in april 1524, florentine explorer giovanni da verrazzano, sailing in service of francis i of france, became the first documented european to visit the area that would become new york city.[32] verrazzano entered the tidal strait now known as the narrows and named the land around upper new york harbor new angoulême, in reference to the family name of king francis i; he sailed far enough into the harbor to sight the hudson river, and he named the bay of santa margarita   what is now upper new york bay   after marguerite de navarre, the elder sister of the king.[33][34] manhattan was first mapped during a 1609 voyage of henry hudson.[35] hudson came across manhattan island and the native people living there, and continued up the river that would later bear his name, the hudson river.[36] manhattan was first recorded in writing as manna hata, in the logbook of robert juet, an officer on the voyage.[37] a permanent european presence in new netherland began in 1624, with the founding of a dutch fur trading settlement on governors island.[38] in 1625, construction was started on the citadel of fort amsterdam on manhattan island, later called new amsterdam (nieuw amsterdam), in what is now lower manhattan.[39][40] the establishment of fort amsterdam is recognized as the birth of new york city.[41] in 1647, peter stuyvesant was appointed as the last dutch director general of the colony.[42] new amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on february 2, 1653.[43] in 1664, english forces conquered new netherland and renamed it "new york" after the english duke of york and albany, the future king james ii.[44] in august 1673, the dutch reconquered the colony, renaming it "new orange", but permanently relinquished it back to england the following year under the terms of the treaty of westminster that ended the third anglo dutch war.[45][46] manhattan was at the heart of the new york campaign, a series of major battles in the early stages of the american revolutionary war. the continental army was forced to abandon manhattan after the battle of fort washington on november 16, 1776.[48] the city, greatly damaged by the great fire of new york during the campaign, became the british military and political center of operations in north america for the remainder of the war.[49] british occupation lasted until november 25, 1783, when george washington returned to manhattan, a day celebrated as evacuation day, marking when the last british forces left the city.[50] from january 11, 1785, until 1789, new york city was the fifth of five capitals of the united states under the articles of confederation, with the continental congress meeting at new york city hall (then at fraunces tavern).[51] new york was the first capital under the newly enacted constitution of the united states, from march 4, 1789, to august 12, 1790, at federal hall.[52] federal hall was where the united states supreme court met for the first time,[53] the united states bill of rights were drafted and ratified,[54] and where the northwest ordinance was adopted, establishing measures for admission to the union of new states.[55] new york grew as an economic center, first as a result of alexander hamilton's policies and practices as the first secretary of the treasury to expand the city's role as a center of commerce and industry.[56] by 1810, new york city, then confined to manhattan, had surpassed philadelphia as the most populous city in the united states.[57] the commissioners' plan of 1811 laid out the island of manhattan in its familiar grid plan.[58] the city's role as an economic center grew with the opening of the erie canal in 1825, cutting transportation costs by 90% compared to road transport and connecting the atlantic port to the vast agricultural markets of the midwestern united states and canada.[59][60][61] tammany hall, a democratic party political machine, began to grow in influence with the support of many of the immigrant irish, culminating in the election of the first tammany mayor, fernando wood, in 1854.[62] covering 840 acres (340 ha) in the center of the island, central park, which opened its first portions to the public in 1858, became the first landscaped public park in an american city.[63][64][65][66] new york city played a complex role in the american civil war. the city had strong commercial ties to the south, but anger around conscription, resentment against lincoln's war policies and paranoia about free blacks taking the jobs of poor immigrants[67] culminated in the three day long new york draft riots of july 1863, among the worst incidents of civil disorder in american history.[68] the rate of immigration from europe grew steeply after the civil war, and manhattan became the first stop for millions seeking a new life in the united states, a role acknowledged by the dedication of the statue of liberty in 1886.[69][70] this immigration brought further social upheaval. in a city of tenements packed with poorly paid laborers from dozens of nations, the city became a hotbed of revolution (including anarchists and communists among others), syndicalism, racketeering, and unionization.[citation needed] in 1883, the opening of the brooklyn bridge across the east river established a road connection to brooklyn and the rest of long island.[71] in 1898, new york city consolidated with three neighboring counties to form "the city of greater new york", and manhattan was established as one of the five boroughs of new york city.[72][73] the bronx remained part of new york county until 1914, when bronx county was established.[74] the construction of the new york city subway, which opened in 1904, helped bind the new city together,[75] as did the completion of the williamsburg bridge (1903) and manhattan bridge (1909) connecting to brooklyn and the queensboro bridge (1909) connecting to queens.[76] in the 1920s, manhattan experienced large arrivals of african americans as part of the great migration from the southern united states, and the harlem renaissance,[77] part of a larger boom time in the prohibition era that included new skyscrapers competing for the skyline, with the woolworth building (1913), 40 wall street (1930), the chrysler building (1930), and the empire state building (1931) leapfrogging each other to take their place as the world's tallest building.[78] manhattan's majority white ethnic group declined from 98.7% in 1900 to 58.3% by 1990.[79] on march 25, 1911, the triangle shirtwaist factory fire in greenwich village killed 146 garment workers,[80] leading to overhauls of the city's fire department, building codes, and workplace safety regulations.[81] in 1912, about 20,000 workers, a quarter of them women, marched upon washington square park to commemorate the fire. many of the women wore fitted tucked front blouses like those manufactured by the company, a clothing style that became the working woman's uniform and a symbol of women's liberation, reflecting the alliance of the labor and suffrage movements.[82] despite the great depression, some of the world's tallest skyscrapers were completed in manhattan during the 1930s, including numerous art deco masterpieces that are still part of the city's skyline, most notably the empire state building, the chrysler building, and 30 rockefeller plaza.[83] a postwar economic boom led to the development of huge housing developments targeted at returning veterans, the largest being stuyvesant town peter cooper village, which opened in 1947.[84][85] the united nations relocated to a new headquarters that was completed in 1952 along the east river.[86][87][88] the stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent protests by members of the gay community against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of june 28, 1969, at the stonewall inn in the greenwich village neighborhood of lower manhattan. they are widely considered to constitute the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement[89][90] and the modern fight for lgbt rights.[91][17][92][16][93] in the 1970s, job losses due to industrial restructuring caused new york city, including manhattan, to suffer from economic problems and rising crime rates.[94] while a resurgence in the financial industry greatly improved the city's economic health in the 1980s, new york's crime rate continued to increase through the decade and into the beginning of the 1990s.[95] the 1980s saw a rebirth of wall street, and manhattan reclaimed its role as the world's financial center, with wall street employment doubling from 1977 to 1987.[96] the 1980s also saw manhattan at the heart of the aids crisis, with greenwich village at its epicenter.[97] in the 1970s, times square and 42nd street   with its sex shops, peep shows, and adult theaters, along with its sex trade, street crime, and public drug use   became emblematic of the city's decline, with a 1981 article in rolling stone magazine calling the stretch of west 42nd street between 7th and 8th avenues the "sleaziest block in america".[98] by the late 1990s, led by efforts by the city and the walt disney company, the area had been revived as a center of tourism to the point where it was described by the new york times as "arguably the most sought after 13 acres of commercial property in the world."[99] by the 1990s, crime rates began to drop dramatically[100][101] and the city once again became the destination of immigrants from around the world, joining with low interest rates and wall street bonus payments to fuel the growth of the real estate market.[102] important new sectors, such as silicon alley, emerged in the flatiron district, cementing technology as a key component of manhattan's economy.[103] the 1993 world trade center bombing, described by the fbi as "something of a deadly dress rehearsal for 9/11", was a terrorist attack in which six people were killed when a van bomb filled with explosives was detonated in a parking lot below the north tower of the world trade center complex.[104] on september 11, 2001, the twin towers of the original world trade center were struck by hijacked aircraft and collapsed in the september 11 attacks launched by al qaeda terrorists. the collapse caused extensive damage to surrounding buildings and skyscrapers in lower manhattan, and resulted in the deaths of 2,606 of the 17,400 who had been in the buildings when the planes hit, in addition to those on the planes.[105] since 2001, most of lower manhattan has been restored, although there has been controversy surrounding the rebuilding. in 2014, the new one world trade center, at 1,776 feet (541 m) measured to the top of its spire, became the tallest building in the western hemisphere[106] and is the world's seventh tallest building (as of 2023).[107] the occupy wall street protests in zuccotti park in the financial district of lower manhattan began on september 17, 2011, receiving global attention and spawning the occupy movement against social and economic inequality worldwide.[108][109] on october 29 and 30, 2012, hurricane sandy caused extensive destruction in the borough, ravaging portions of lower manhattan with record high storm surge from new york harbor,[110] severe flooding, and high winds, causing power outages for hundreds of thousands of city residents[111] and leading to gasoline shortages[112] and disruption of mass transit systems.[113][114][115][116] the storm and its profound impacts have prompted discussion of constructing seawalls and other coastal barriers around the shorelines of the borough and the metropolitan area to minimize the risk of destructive consequences from another such event in the future.[117] according to the united states census bureau, new york county has a total area of 33.6 square miles (87 km2), of which 22.8 square miles (59 km2) is land and 10.8 square miles (28 km2) (32%) is water.[1] the northern segment of upper manhattan represents a geographic panhandle. manhattan island is 22.7 square miles (59 km2) in area, 13.4 miles (21.6 km) long and 2.3 miles (3.7 km) wide, at its widest point, near 14th street.[118] the borough consists primarily of manhattan island, along with the marble hill neighborhood and several small islands, including randalls island and wards island and roosevelt island in the east river; and governors island and liberty island to the south in new york harbor.[119] the island is about 13.4 miles (21.6 km) from north to south, and at its widest, 2.3 miles (3.7 km). manhattan island is loosely divided into downtown (lower manhattan), midtown (midtown manhattan), and uptown (upper manhattan), with fifth avenue dividing manhattan lengthwise into its east side and west side.[120] manhattan island is bounded by the hudson river to the west and the east river to the east. to the north, the harlem river divides manhattan island from the bronx and the mainland united states. early in the 19th century, land reclamation was used to expand lower manhattan from the natural hudson shoreline at greenwich street to west street.[121] when building the world trade center in 1968, 1.2 million cubic yards (920,000 m3) of material excavated from the site[122] was used to expand the manhattan shoreline across west street, creating battery park city.[123] constructed on piers at a cost of $260 million, little island opened on the hudson river in may 2021, connected to the western termini of 13th and 14th streets by footbridges.[124] marble hill was part of the northern tip of manhattan island, but the harlem river ship canal, dug in 1895 to better connect the harlem and hudson rivers, separated it from the remainder of manhattan.[125] before world war i, the section of the original harlem river channel separating marble hill from the bronx was filled in, and marble hill became part of the mainland.[126] after a may 1984 court ruling that marble hill was simultaneously part of the borough of manhattan (not the borough of the bronx) and part of bronx county (not new york county),[127] the matter was definitively settled later that year when the new york legislature overwhelmingly passed legislation declaring the neighborhood part of both new york county and the borough of manhattan.[128][129] within new york harbor, there are three smaller islands: other smaller islands, in the east river, include (from north to south): the bedrock underlying much of manhattan consists of three rock formations: inwood marble, fordham gneiss, and manhattan schist, and is well suited for the foundations of manhattan's skyscrapers.[134] it is part of the manhattan prong physiographic region. under the köppen climate classification, new york city features both a humid subtropical climate (cfa) and a humid continental climate (dfa);[135] it is the northernmost major city on the north american continent with a humid subtropical climate. the city averages 234 days with at least some sunshine annually.[136] winters are cold and damp, and prevailing wind patterns that blow offshore temper the moderating effects of the atlantic ocean, yet the atlantic and the partial shielding from colder air by the appalachians keep the city warmer in the winter than inland north american cities at similar or lesser latitudes. the daily mean temperature in january, the area's coldest month, is 32.6 °f (0.3 °c);[137] temperatures usually drop to 10 °f (−12 °c) several times per winter,[137][138] and reach 60 °f (16 °c) several days in the coldest winter month.[137] spring and autumn are unpredictable and can range from chilly to warm, although they are usually mild with low humidity. summers are typically warm to hot and humid, with a daily mean temperature of 76.5 °f (24.7 °c) in july.[137] nighttime conditions are often exacerbated by the urban heat island phenomenon, which causes heat absorbed during the day to be radiated back at night, raising temperatures by as much as 7 °f (4 °c) when winds are slow.[139] daytime temperatures exceed 90 °f (32 °c) on average of 17 days each summer[140] and in some years exceed 100 °f (38 °c). extreme temperatures have ranged from −15 °f (−26 °c), recorded on february 9, 1934, up to 106 °f (41 °c) on july 9, 1936.[140] manhattan lies in usda plant hardiness zone 7b (5 to 10 °f/ 15 to  12.2 °c).[141] manhattan receives 49.9 inches (1,270 mm) of precipitation annually, which is relatively evenly spread throughout the year. average winter snowfall between 1981 and 2010 has been 25.8 inches (66 cm); this varies considerably from year to year.[140] manhattan's many neighborhoods are not named according to any particular convention, nor do they have official boundaries. some are geographical (the upper east side), or ethnically descriptive (little italy). others are acronyms, such as tribeca (for "triangle below canal street") or soho ("south of houston"), nolita ("north of little italy"), and nomad ("north of madison square park").[144][145][146][147][148] harlem is a name from the dutch colonial era after haarlem, a city in the netherlands.[149] some have simple folkloric names, such as hell's kitchen, alongside their more official but lesser used title (in this case, clinton).[150] some neighborhoods, such as soho, which is mixed use, are known for upscale shopping as well as residential use.[151] others, such as greenwich village, the lower east side, alphabet city and the east village, have long been associated with the bohemian subculture.[152][153][154] chelsea is one of several manhattan neighborhoods with large gay populations and has become a center of both the international art industry and new york's nightlife.[155] chinatown has the highest concentration of people of chinese descent outside of asia.[156][157] koreatown is roughly centered on 32nd street between fifth and sixth avenues.[158] rose hill features a growing number of indian restaurants and spice shops along a stretch of lexington avenue between 25th and 30th streets which has become known as curry hill.[159] washington heights in uptown manhattan is home to the largest dominican immigrant community in the united states.[160] harlem, also in upper manhattan, is the historical epicenter of african american culture.[161] since 2010, a little australia has emerged and is growing in nolita, lower manhattan.[162] manhattan has two central business districts, the financial district at the southern tip of the island, and midtown manhattan. the term uptown also refers to the northern part of manhattan above 72nd street and downtown to the southern portion below 14th street,[163] with midtown covering the area in between, though definitions can be fluid. fifth avenue roughly bisects manhattan island and acts as the demarcation line for east/west designations.[163][164] south of waverly place, fifth avenue terminates and broadway becomes the east/west demarcation line.[citation needed] in manhattan, uptown means north and downtown means south.[165] this usage differs from that of most american cities, where downtown refers to the central business district. as of the 2020 census, manhattan's population had increased by 6.8% over the decade to 1,694,250, representing 19.2% of new york city's population of 8,804,194 and 8.4% of new york state's population of 20,201,230.[3] the population density of new york county was 70,450.8 inhabitants per square mile (27,201.2/km2) in 2022, the highest population density of any county in the united states and higher than the density of any individual u.s. city.[166][167] at the 2010 census, there were 1,585,873 people living in manhattan, an increase of 3.2% from the 1,537,195 counted in the 2000 census.[168] in 2010, the largest organized religious group in manhattan was the archdiocese of new york, with 323,325 catholics worshiping at 109 parishes, followed by 64,000 orthodox jews with 77 congregations, an estimated 42,545 muslims with 21 congregations, 42,502 non denominational adherents with 54 congregations, 26,178 tec episcopalians with 46 congregations, 25,048 abc usa baptists with 41 congregations, 24,536 reform jews with 10 congregations, 23,982 mahayana buddhists with 35 congregations, 10,503 pc usa presbyterians with 30 congregations, and 10,268 rca presbyterians with 10 congregations. altogether, 44.0% of the population was claimed as members by religious congregations, although members of historically african american denominations were underrepresented due to incomplete information.[173] in 2014, manhattan had 703 religious organizations, the seventeenth most out of all us counties.[174] there is a large buddhist temple in manhattan located at the foot of the manhattan bridge in chinatown.[175] as of 2015, 60.0% (927,650) of manhattan residents, aged five and older, spoke only english at home, while 22.63% (350,112) spoke spanish, 5.37% (83,013) chinese, 2.21% (34,246) french, 0.85% (13,138) korean, 0.72% (11,135) russian, and 0.70% (10,766) japanese. in total, 40.0% of manhattan's population, aged five and older, spoke a language other than english at home.[176] points of interest on manhattan island include the american museum of natural history; the battery; broadway and the theater district; bryant park; central park, chinatown; the chrysler building; the cloisters; columbia university; curry hill; the empire state building; flatiron building; the financial district (including the new york stock exchange building; wall street; and the south street seaport); grand central terminal; greenwich village (including new york university; washington square arch; and stonewall inn); harlem and spanish harlem; the high line; koreatown; lincoln center; little australia; little italy; madison square garden; museum mile on fifth avenue (including the metropolitan museum of art); penn station, port authority bus terminal; rockefeller center (including radio city music hall); times square; and the world trade center (including the national september 11 museum and one world trade center). there are also numerous iconic bridges across rivers that connect to manhattan island, as well as an emerging number of supertall skyscrapers. the statue of liberty rests on liberty island, an exclave of manhattan, and part of ellis island is also an exclave of manhattan. the borough has many energy efficient office buildings, such as the hearst tower, the rebuilt 7 world trade center,[177] and the bank of america tower the first skyscraper designed to attain a platinum leed certification.[178][179] the skyscraper, which has shaped manhattan's distinctive skyline, has been closely associated with new york city's identity since the end of the 19th century.[180] structures such as the equitable building of 1915, which rises vertically forty stories from the sidewalk, prompted the passage of the 1916 zoning resolution, requiring new buildings to contain setbacks withdrawing progressively at a defined angle from the street as they rose, in order to preserve a view of the sky at street level.[181] manhattan's skyline includes several buildings that are symbolic of new york, in particular the chrysler building[182]: 14 and the empire state building, which sees about 4 million visitors a year.[183] in 1961, the struggling pennsylvania railroad unveiled plans to tear down the old penn station and replace it with a new madison square garden and office building complex.[184] organized protests were aimed at preserving the mckim, mead & white designed structure completed in 1910, widely considered a masterpiece of the beaux arts style and one of the architectural jewels of new york city.[185] despite these efforts, demolition of the structure began in october 1963.[186] the loss of penn station led directly to the enactment in 1965 of a local law establishing the new york city landmarks preservation commission, which is responsible for preserving the "city's historic, aesthetic, and cultural heritage".[187] the historic preservation movement triggered by penn station's demise has been credited with the retention of some one million structures nationwide, including over 1,000 in new york city.[188] in 2017, a multibillion dollar rebuilding plan was unveiled to restore the historic grandeur of penn station, in the process of upgrading the landmark's status as a critical transportation hub.[189] the 700,000 sq ft (65,000 m2) moynihan train hall, developed as a $1.6 billion renovation and expansion of penn station into the james a. farley building, the city's former main post office building, was opened in january 2021.[190] parkland covers a total of 2,659 acres (10.76 km2), accounting for 18.2% of the borough's land area; the 840 acre (3.4 km2) central park is the borough's largest park, comprising 31.6% of manhattan's parkland.[191] designed by frederick law olmsted and calvert vaux, the park is anchored by the 12 acre (4.9 ha) great lawn[192] and offers extensive walking tracks, two ice skating rinks, a wildlife sanctuary, and several lawns and sporting areas, as well as 21 playgrounds,[193] and a 6 mile (9.7 km) road from which automobile traffic has been banned since 2018.[194] while much of the park looks natural, it is almost entirely landscaped; the construction of central park in the 1850s was one of the era's most massive public works projects, with some 20,000 workers moving 5 million cubic yards (3.8 million cubic meters) of material to shape the topography and create the english style pastoral landscape that olmsted and vaux sought.[195] the remaining 70% of manhattan's parkland includes 204 playgrounds, 251 greenstreets, 371 basketball courts, and many other amenities.[196] the next largest park in manhattan, the hudson river park, stretches 4.5 miles (7.2 km) along the hudson river and comprises 550 acres (220 ha).[197] other major parks include:[191] manhattan is the economic engine of new york city, with its 2.45 million workers drawn from the entire new york metropolitan area accounting for almost more than half of all jobs in new york city.[198] manhattan's workforce is overwhelmingly focused on white collar professions. in 2010, manhattan's daytime population was swelling to 3.94 million, with commuters adding a net 1.48 million people to the population, along with visitors, tourists, and commuting students. the commuter influx of 1.61 million workers coming into manhattan was the largest of any county or city in the country.[199] manhattan had the highest per capita income, at $186,848 in 2022, among united states counties with more than 50,000 residents.[200] based on census data for new york county for 2018 2022, the median household income was $99,880 and the poverty rate was 17.2%.[3] in the second quarter of 2023, manhattan had an average weekly wage of $2,590, ranked fourth highest among the nation's 360 largest counties.[198] data for 2022 from the census bureau showed growing inequality, with those in the top 20% having an average household income of $545,549, more than 50 times higher than the $10,529 average income in the lowest 20% of households, the largest gap of any county in the country and "larger ... than in many developing countries",[201][202] with inequality growing steadily since 2010.[203] as of 2023[update], manhattan's cost of living was the highest in the united states.[204] manhattan's most important economic sector lies in its role as the headquarters for the u.s. financial industry, metonymously known as wall street. manhattan is home to the new york stock exchange (nyse), at 11 wall street in lower manhattan, and the nasdaq, now located at 4 times square in midtown manhattan, representing the world's largest and second largest stock exchanges, respectively, when measured both by overall share trading value and by total market capitalization of their listed companies in 2023.[20] the nyse american (formerly the american stock exchange, amex), new york board of trade, and the new york mercantile exchange (nymex) are also located downtown. new york city is home to the most corporate headquarters of any city in the united states, the overwhelming majority based in manhattan.[205] manhattan had more than 520 million square feet (48 million square meters) of office space in 2022,[206] making it the largest office market in the united states; while midtown manhattan, with more than 400 million square feet (37 million square meters) is the largest central business district in the world.[207] lower manhattan is the third largest u.s. central business district (following the chicago loop).[208][209] new york city's role as the top global center for the advertising industry is metonymously known as "madison avenue".[210] manhattan has driven new york's status as a top tier global high technology hub.[212][213] silicon alley, once a metonym for the sphere encompassing the metropolitan region's high tech industries,[214] is no longer a relevant moniker as the city's tech environment has expanded dramatically both in location and in its scope. new york city's current tech sphere encompasses a universal array of applications involving artificial intelligence, the internet, new media, financial technology (fintech) and cryptocurrency, biotechnology, game design, and other fields within information technology that are supported by its entrepreneurship ecosystem and venture capital investments. as of 2014[update], new york city hosted 300,000 employees in the tech sector.[215][216] in 2015, silicon alley generated over us$7.3 billion in venture capital investment,[217] most based in manhattan, as well as in brooklyn, queens, and elsewhere in the region. high technology startup companies and employment are growing in manhattan and across new york city, bolstered by the city's emergence as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship,[217] social tolerance,[218] and environmental sustainability,[219][220] as well as new york's position as the leading internet hub and telecommunications center in north america, including its vicinity to several transatlantic fiber optic trunk lines, the city's intellectual capital, and its extensive outdoor wireless connectivity.[221] verizon communications, headquartered at 140 west street in lower manhattan, was at the final stages in 2014 of completing a us$3 billion fiberoptic telecommunications upgrade throughout new york city.[222] the biotechnology sector is also growing in manhattan based upon the city's strength in academic scientific research and public and commercial financial support. by mid 2014, accelerator, a biotech investment firm, had raised more than us$30 million from investors, including eli lilly and company, pfizer, and johnson & johnson, for initial funding to create biotechnology startups at the alexandria center for life science, which encompasses more than 700,000 square feet (65,000 m2) on east 29th street and promotes collaboration among scientists and entrepreneurs at the center and with nearby academic, medical, and research institutions. the new york city economic development corporation's early stage life sciences funding initiative and venture capital partners, including celgene, general electric ventures, and eli lilly, committed a minimum of us$100 million to help launch 15 to 20 ventures in life sciences and biotechnology.[223] in 2011, mayor michael r. bloomberg had announced his choice of cornell university and technion israel institute of technology to build a us$2 billion graduate school of applied sciences on roosevelt island, manhattan, with the goal of transforming new york city into the world's premier technology capital.[224][225][needs update] tourism is vital to manhattan's economy, and the landmarks of manhattan are the focus of new york city's tourists, with a record 66.6 million visiting the city in 2019, bringing in $47.4 billion in tourism revenue. visitor numbers dropped by two thirds in 2020 during the covid 19 pandemic, climbing back to 63.3 million visitors in 2023.[226][227] according to the broadway league, shows on broadway sold approximately us$1.54 billion worth of tickets in the 2022 2023 and the 2023 2024 seasons with attendance of approximately 12.3 million each.[228] real estate is a major force driving manhattan's economy. manhattan has perennially been home to some of the world's most valuable real estate, including the time warner center, which had the highest listed market value in the city in 2006 at us$1.1 billion,[229] to be subsequently surpassed in october 2014 by the waldorf astoria new york, which became the most expensive hotel ever sold after being purchased by the anbang insurance group, based in china, for us$1.95 billion.[230] when 450 park avenue was sold on july 2, 2007, for us$510 million, about us$1,589 per square foot (us$17,104/m²), it broke the barely month old record for an american office building of us$1,476 per square foot (us$15,887/m²) based on the sale of 660 madison avenue.[231] in 2014, manhattan was home to six of the top ten zip codes in the united states by median housing price.[232] in 2019, the most expensive home sale ever in the united states occurred in manhattan, at a selling price of us$238 million, for a 24,000 square foot (2,200 m2) penthouse apartment overlooking central park,[233] while central park tower, topped out at 1,550 feet (472 m) in 2019, is the world's tallest residential building, followed globally in height by 111 west 57th street and 432 park avenue, both also located in midtown manhattan. manhattan has been described as the media capital of the world.[234][235] a significant array of media outlets and their journalists report about international, american, business, entertainment, and new york metropolitan area related matters from manhattan. manhattan is served by the major new york city daily news publications, including the new york times, which has won the most pulitzer prizes for journalism[236] and is considered the u.s. media's newspaper of record;[237] the new york daily news; and the new york post, which are all headquartered in the borough. the nation's largest newspaper by circulation, the wall street journal, is also based in manhattan.[238] other daily newspapers include am new york and the villager. the new york amsterdam news, based in harlem, is one of the leading black owned weekly newspapers in the united states. the village voice, historically the largest alternative newspaper in the united states, announced in 2017 that it would cease publication of its print edition and convert to a fully digital venture.[239] the television industry developed in manhattan and is a significant employer in the borough's economy. the four major american broadcast networks, abc, cbs, nbc, and fox,[240] as well as univision, are all headquartered in manhattan, as are many cable channels, including cnn, msnbc, mtv, fox news, hbo, and comedy central. in 1971, wlib became new york city's first black owned radio station[241] and began broadcasts geared toward the african american community in 1949.[242] wqht, also known as hot 97, claims to be the premier hip hop station in the united states.[243] wnyc, broadcasting on both an am and fm signal, has the largest public radio audience in the nation and is the most listened to commercial or non commercial radio station in manhattan.[244] wbai, owned by the non profit pacifica foundation, broadcasts eclectic music, as well as political news, talk and opinion from a left leaning viewpoint.[245] the oldest public access television cable tv channel in the united states is the manhattan neighborhood network, founded in 1971, offers eclectic local programming that ranges from a jazz hour to discussions of labor issues to foreign language and religious programming.[246] ny1, charter communications's local news channel, is known for its beat coverage of city hall and state politics.[247] education in manhattan is provided by a vast number of public and private institutions. non charter public schools in the borough are operated by the new york city department of education,[250] the largest public school system in the united states. charter schools include success academy harlem 1 through 5, success academy upper west, and public prep. several notable new york city public high schools are located in manhattan, including a. philip randolph campus high school, beacon high school, stuyvesant high school, fiorello h. laguardia high school, high school of fashion industries, eleanor roosevelt high school, nyc lab school, manhattan center for science and mathematics, hunter college high school, and high school for math, science and engineering at city college. bard high school early college, a hybrid school created by bard college, serves students from around the city. many private preparatory schools are also situated in manhattan, including the upper east side's brearley school, dalton school, browning school, spence school, chapin school, nightingale bamford school, convent of the sacred heart, hewitt school, saint david's school, loyola school, and regis high school. the upper west side is home to the collegiate school and trinity school. the borough is also home to manhattan country school, trevor day school, xavier high school and the united nations international school. based on data from the 2011 2015 american community survey, 59.9% of manhattan residents over age 25 have a bachelor's degree.[251] as of 2005, about 60% of residents were college graduates and some 25% had earned advanced degrees, giving manhattan one of the nation's densest concentrations of highly educated people.[252] manhattan has various colleges and universities, including columbia university (and its affiliate barnard college), cooper union, marymount manhattan college, new york institute of technology, new york university (nyu), the juilliard school, pace university, berkeley college, the new school, yeshiva university, and a campus of fordham university. other schools include bank street college of education, boricua college, jewish theological seminary of america, manhattan school of music, metropolitan college of new york, parsons school of design, school of visual arts, touro college, and union theological seminary. several other private institutions maintain a manhattan presence, among them mercy college, st. john's university, adelphi university, the king's college, and pratt institute. cornell tech, part of cornell university, is developing on roosevelt island. the city university of new york (cuny), the municipal college system of new york city, is the largest urban university system in the united states, serving more than 226,000 degree students and a roughly equal number of adult, continuing and professional education students.[253] a third of college graduates in new york city graduate from cuny, with the institution enrolling about half of all college students in new york city. cuny senior colleges located in manhattan include: baruch college, city college of new york, hunter college, john jay college of criminal justice and william e. macaulay honors college; graduate studies and doctorate granting institutions are craig newmark graduate school of journalism at the city university of new york, cuny graduate center, cuny graduate school of public health & health policy, cuny school of labor and urban studies and cuny school of professional studies.[254][255] the only cuny community college located in manhattan is the borough of manhattan community college.[256] the state university of new york is represented by the fashion institute of technology, state university of new york state college of optometry, and stony brook university   manhattan.[257] manhattan is a world center for training and education in medicine and the life sciences.[258] the city as a whole receives the second highest amount of annual funding from the national institutes of health among all u.s. cities,[259] the bulk of which goes to manhattan's research institutions, including memorial sloan kettering cancer center, rockefeller university, mount sinai school of medicine, columbia university college of physicians and surgeons, weill cornell medical college, and new york university school of medicine. manhattan is served by the new york public library, which has the largest collection of any public library system in the country.[260] the five units of the central library mid manhattan library, 53rd street library, the new york public library for the performing arts, andrew heiskell braille and talking book library, and the science, industry and business library are all located in manhattan.[261] more than 35 other branch libraries are located in the borough.[262] manhattan is the borough most closely associated with new york city by non residents; residents within the new york city metropolitan area, including new york city's boroughs outside manhattan, will often describe a trip to manhattan as "going to the city".[263] poet walt whitman characterized the streets of manhattan as being traversed by "hurrying, feverish, electric crowds".[264] manhattan has been the scene of many important global and american cultural movements. the harlem renaissance in the 1920s established the african american literary canon in the united states and introduced writers langston hughes and zora neale hurston. manhattan's visual art scene in the 1950s and 1960s was a center of the pop art movement, which gave birth to such giants as jasper johns and roy lichtenstein. the downtown pop art movement of the late 1970s included artist andy warhol and clubs like serendipity 3 and studio 54, where he socialized. broadway theater is considered the highest professional form of theater in the united states. plays and musicals are staged in one of the 39 larger professional theaters with at least 500 seats, almost all in and around times square. off broadway theaters feature productions in venues with 100 500 seats.[265][266] lincoln center for the performing arts, anchoring lincoln square on the upper west side of manhattan, is home to 12 influential arts organizations, including the metropolitan opera, new york philharmonic, and new york city ballet, as well as the vivian beaumont theater, the juilliard school, jazz at lincoln center, and alice tully hall. performance artists displaying diverse skills are ubiquitous on the streets of manhattan. manhattan is also home to some of the most extensive art collections in the world, both contemporary and classical art, including the metropolitan museum of art, the museum of modern art (moma), the frick collection, the whitney museum of american art, and the frank lloyd wright designed guggenheim museum. the upper east side has many art galleries,[267][268] and the downtown neighborhood of chelsea is known for its more than 200 art galleries that are home to modern art from both upcoming and established artists.[269][270] many of the world's most lucrative art auctions are held in manhattan.[271][272] manhattan is the epicenter of lgbt culture and the central node of the lgbtq+ sociopolitical ecosystem.[275] the borough is widely acclaimed as the cradle of the modern lgbtq rights movement, with its inception at the 1969 stonewall riots.[90][276][277][91][17] brian silverman, the author of frommer's new york city from $90 a day, wrote the city has "one of the world's largest, loudest, and most powerful lgbt communities", and "gay and lesbian culture is as much a part of new york's basic identity as yellow cabs, high rise buildings, and broadway theatre" [278] radiating from this central hub, as lgbt travel guide queer in the world states, "the fabulosity of gay new york is unrivaled on earth, and queer culture seeps into every corner of its five boroughs".[279] multiple gay villages have developed, spanning the length of the borough from the lower east side, east village, and greenwich village, through chelsea and hell's kitchen, uptown to morningside heights. the annual nyc pride march (or gay pride parade) traverses southward down fifth avenue and ends at greenwich village; the manhattan parade is the largest pride parade in the world, attracting tens of thousands of participants and millions of sidewalk spectators each june.[273][274] stonewall 50   worldpride nyc 2019 was the largest international pride celebration in history, produced by heritage of pride. the events were in partnership with the i ❤ ny program's lgbt division, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the stonewall uprising, with 150,000 participants and five million spectators attending in manhattan.[280] the borough is represented in several prominent idioms. the phrase new york minute is meant to convey an extremely short time such as an instant,[281] sometimes in hyperbolic form, as in "perhaps faster than you would believe is possible," referring to the rapid pace of life in manhattan.[282][283] the expression "melting pot" was first popularly coined to describe the densely populated immigrant neighborhoods on the lower east side in israel zangwill's play the melting pot, which was an adaptation of william shakespeare's romeo and juliet set in new york city in 1908.[284] the iconic flatiron building is said to have been the source of the phrase "23 skidoo" or scram, from what cops would shout at men who tried to get glimpses of women's dresses being blown up by the winds created by the triangular building.[285] the "big apple" dates back to the 1920s, when a reporter heard the term used by new orleans stable hands to refer to new york city's horse racetracks and named his racing column "around the big apple". jazz musicians adopted the term to refer to the city as the world's jazz capital, and a 1970s ad campaign by the new york convention and visitors bureau helped popularize the term.[286] manhattan is well known for its street parades, which celebrate a broad array of themes, including holidays, nationalities, human rights, and major league sports team championship victories. the majority of higher profile parades in new york city are held in manhattan. the primary orientation of the annual street parades is typically from north to south, marching along major avenues. the annual macy's thanksgiving day parade is the world's largest parade,[287] beginning alongside central park and processing southward to the flagship macy's herald square store;[290] the parade is viewed on telecasts worldwide and draws millions of spectators in person.[287] other notable parades including the world's oldest st. patrick's day parade, held annually in march since 1762,[291][292] the greenwich village halloween parade in october,[293] and numerous parades commemorating the independence days of many nations.[294] ticker tape parades celebrating sporting championships won as well as other national accomplishments march northward on broadway from bowling green to city hall park in lower manhattan, along the canyon of heroes.[295] new york fashion week, held at various locations in manhattan, is a high profile semiannual event featuring models displaying the latest wardrobes created by prominent fashion designers worldwide in advance of these fashions proceeding to the retail marketplace. manhattan is home to the nba's new york knicks and the nhl's new york rangers, both of which play their home games at madison square garden, the only major professional sports arena in the borough.[296] the garden was also home to the wnba's new york liberty through the 2017 season, but that team's primary home is now the barclays center in brooklyn. the new york jets proposed a west side stadium for their home field, but the proposal was defeated in june 2005, and they now play at metlife stadium in east rutherford, new jersey.[297] manhattan does not currently host a professional baseball franchise. the original new york giants played primarily in the various incarnations of the polo grounds from their inception in 1883 until they headed to california with the brooklyn dodgers after the 1957 season.[298] the new york yankees began their franchise as the highlanders, named for hilltop park, where they played from their creation in 1903 until 1912.[299] the team moved to the polo grounds with the 1913 season, where they were officially christened the new york yankees, remaining there until they moved across the harlem river in 1923 to yankee stadium.[300] the new york mets played in the polo grounds in 1962 and 1963, their first two seasons, before shea stadium was completed in 1964.[301] after the mets departed, the polo grounds was demolished in april 1964.[302][303] the first national college level basketball championship, the national invitation tournament, was held in new york in 1938 and remains in the city.[304] the new york knicks started play in 1946 as one of the national basketball association's original teams, playing their first home games at the 69th regiment armory, before making madison square garden their permanent home.[305] the new york liberty of the wnba shared the garden with the knicks from their creation in 1997 as one of the league's original eight teams through the 2017 season,[306] after which the team moved nearly all of its home schedule to white plains, new york.[307] rucker park in harlem is a playground court, famed for its streetball style of play, where many nba athletes have played in the summer league.[308] although both of new york city's football teams play today in metlife stadium in east rutherford, new jersey, both teams started out playing in the polo grounds. the new york giants played side by side with their baseball namesakes from the time they entered the national football league in 1925, until crossing over to yankee stadium in 1956.[309] the new york jets, originally known as the titans of new york, started out in 1960 at the polo grounds, before joining the mets in queens at shea stadium in 1964.[310] the new york rangers of the national hockey league have played in the various locations of madison square garden since the team's founding in the 1926 1927 season. the rangers were predated by the new york americans, who started play in the garden the previous season, lasting until the team folded after the 1941 1942 nhl season, a season it played in the garden as the brooklyn americans.[311] the new york cosmos of the north american soccer league played their home games at downing stadium for two seasons, starting in 1974. the playing pitch and facilities at downing stadium were in unsatisfactory condition, however, and as the team's popularity grew they too left for yankee stadium, and then giants stadium. the stadium was demolished in 2002 to make way for the $45 million, 4,754 seat icahn stadium.[312][313] since new york city's consolidation in 1898, manhattan has been governed by the new york city charter; its 1989 revision provided for a strong mayor council system.[314] the centralized new york city government is responsible for public education, correctional institutions, libraries, public safety, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply, and welfare services in manhattan. the office of borough president was created in the consolidation of 1898 to balance centralization with local authority. each borough president had a powerful administrative role derived from having a vote on the new york city board of estimate, which was responsible for creating and approving the city's budget and proposals for land use. in 1989, the us supreme court declared the board of estimate unconstitutional because brooklyn, the most populous borough, had no greater effective representation on the board than staten island, the least populous borough, a violation of the equal protection clause.[315] since 1990, the largely powerless borough president has acted as an advocate for the borough at the mayoral agencies, the city council, the new york state government, and corporations.[citation needed] manhattan's current borough president is mark levine, elected as a democrat in november 2021. alvin bragg, a democrat, is the district attorney of new york county. manhattan has ten city council members, the third largest contingent among the five boroughs. it also has twelve administrative districts, each served by a local community board. community boards are representative bodies that field complaints and serve as advocates for local residents. as the host of the united nations, the borough is home to the world's largest international consular corps, comprising 105 consulates, consulates general and honorary consulates.[316] it is also the home of new york city hall, the seat of new york city government housing the mayor of new york city and the new york city council. the mayor's staff and thirteen municipal agencies are located in the nearby manhattan municipal building, completed in 1914, one of the largest governmental buildings in the world.[317] the democratic party holds most public offices. registered republicans are a minority in the borough, constituting 9.88% of the electorate as of april 2016[update]. registered republicans are more than 20% of the electorate only in the neighborhoods of the upper east side and the financial district as of 2016[update]. democrats accounted for 68.41% of those registered to vote, while 17.94% of voters were unaffiliated.[321][322] as of 2023, three democrats represented manhattan in the united states house of representatives.[323] the united states postal service operates post offices in manhattan. the james farley post office in midtown manhattan is new york city's main post office.[324] both the united states district court for the southern district of new york and united states court of appeals for the second circuit are located in lower manhattan's foley square, and the u.s. attorney and other federal offices and agencies maintain locations in that area. starting in the mid 19th century, the united states became a magnet for immigrants seeking to escape poverty in their home countries. after arriving in new york, many new arrivals ended up living in squalor in the slums of the five points neighborhood, an area between broadway and the bowery, northeast of new york city hall. by the 1820s, the area was home to many gambling dens and brothels, and was known as a dangerous place to go. in 1842, charles dickens visited the area and was appalled at the horrendous living conditions he had seen.[325] the predominantly irish five points gang was one of the country's first major organized crime entities. as italian immigration grew in the early 20th century many joined ethnic gangs, including al capone, who got his start in crime with the five points gang.[326] the mafia (also known as cosa nostra) first developed in the mid 19th century in sicily and spread to the us east coast during the late 19th century following waves of sicilian and southern italian emigration. lucky luciano established cosa nostra in manhattan, forming alliances with other criminal enterprises, including the jewish mob, led by meyer lansky, the leading jewish gangster of that period.[327] from 1920 to 1933, prohibition helped create a thriving black market in liquor, upon which the mafia was quick to capitalize.[327] new york city as a whole experienced a sharp increase in crime during the post war period.[328] the murder rate in manhattan hit an all time high of 42 murders per 100,000 residents in 1979.[329] manhattan retained the highest murder rate in the city until 1985 when it was surpassed by the bronx.[329] most serious violent crime has been historically concentrated in upper manhattan and the lower east side, though robbery in particular was a major quality of life concern throughout the borough. through the 1990s and 2000s, levels of violent crime in manhattan plummeted to levels not seen since the 1950s,[330] with murders in manhattan dropping from 503 in 1990, at the citywide peak, to 78 in 2022, a decline of 84%.[331] today crime rates in most of lower manhattan, midtown, the upper east side, and the upper west side are consistent with other major city centers in the united states. however, crime rates remain high in the upper manhattan neighborhoods of east harlem, harlem, washington heights, inwood, and new york city housing authority developments across the borough, despite significant reductions. after the start of the covid 19 pandemic in march 2020, there had been an increase in violent crime, particularly in upper manhattan.[332] mirroring a nationwide trend, rates of shootings and violent crimes in 2023 declined from their peaks during the pandemic.[333][334][335] the rise of immigration near the turn of the 20th century left major portions of manhattan, especially the lower east side, densely packed with recent arrivals, crammed into unhealthy and unsanitary housing. tenements were usually five stories high, constructed on the then typical 25 by 100 feet (7.6 by 30.5 m) lots, with "cockroach landlords" exploiting the new immigrants.[336][337] by 1929, a new housing code effectively ended construction of tenements, though some survive today on the east side of the borough.[337] conversely, there were also areas with luxury apartment developments, the first of which was the dakota on the upper west side.[338] manhattan offers a wide array of private housing, as well as public housing, which is administered by the new york city housing authority (nycha). affordable rental and co operative housing units throughout the borough were created under the mitchell lama housing program.[339] there were 923,302 housing units in 2022[3] at an average density of 40,745 units per square mile (15,732/km2). as of 2003[update], only 24.3% of manhattan residents lived in owner occupied housing, the second lowest rate of all counties in the nation, after the bronx.[340] public housing administered by nycha accounts for nearly 100,000 residents in more than 50,000 units in 2023.[341] completed in 1935, the first houses in the east village were one of the country's first publicly funded low income housing projects.[342][343] at $2,024 in 2022, manhattan has the highest average cost for rent of any county in the us, although a lower percentage of annual income than in several other american cities.[344] manhattan's real estate market for luxury housing continues to be among the most expensive in the world,[345] and manhattan residential property continues to have the highest sale price per square foot in the united states.[19] manhattan's apartments cost $1,773 per square foot ($19,080/m2), compared to san francisco housing at $1,185 per square foot ($12,760/m2), boston housing at $751 per square foot ($8,080/m2), and los angeles housing at $451 per square foot ($4,850/m2).[346] as of the fourth quarter of 2021, the median value of homes in manhattan was $1,306,208, second highest among us counties.[347] manhattan is unique in the u.s. for intense use of public transportation and lack of private car ownership. while 88% of americans nationwide drive to their jobs, with only 5% using public transport, mass transit is the dominant form of travel for residents of manhattan, with 72% of borough residents using public transport to get to work, while only 18% drove.[348][349] according to the 2000 united states census, 77.5% of manhattan households do not own a car.[350] congestion pricing was implemented in new york city in january 2025 and apply to most motor vehicular traffic using the central business district area of manhattan south of 60th street, in an effort to encourage commuters to use mass transit instead.[351] the new york city subway, the largest subway system in the world by number of stations, is the primary means of travel within the city, linking every borough except staten island. there are 151 subway stations in manhattan, out of the 472 stations.[352] a second subway, the path system, connects six stations in manhattan to northern new jersey. passengers pay fares with pay per ride metrocards, which are valid on all city buses and subways, as well as on path trains.[353][354] commuter rail services operating to and from manhattan are the long island rail road (lirr), which connects manhattan and other new york city boroughs to long island; the metro north railroad, which connects manhattan to upstate new york and southwestern connecticut; and nj transit trains, which run to various points in new jersey. the us$11.1 billion east side access project, which brings lirr trains to grand central terminal, opened in 2023; this project utilized a pre existing train tunnel beneath the east river, connecting the east side of manhattan with long island city, queens.[355][356] four multi billion dollar projects were completed in the mid 2010s: the $1.4 billion fulton center in november 2014,[357] the $2.4 billion 7 subway extension in september 2015,[358] the $4 billion world trade center transportation hub in march 2016,[359][360] and phase 1 of the $4.5 billion second avenue subway in january 2017.[361][362] mta new york city transit offers a wide variety of local buses within manhattan under the brand new york city bus. an extensive network of express bus routes serves commuters and other travelers heading into manhattan.[363] the bus system served 784 million passengers citywide in 2011, placing the bus system's ridership as the highest in the nation, and more than double the ridership of the second place los angeles system.[364] the roosevelt island tramway, one of two commuter cable car systems in north america, takes commuters between roosevelt island and manhattan island in less than five minutes, and has been serving the island since 1978.[365][366] the staten island ferry, which runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, annually carries over 21 million passengers on the 5.2 mile (8.4 km) run between manhattan and staten island. each weekday, five vessels transport about 65,000 passengers on 109 boat trips.[367][368] the ferry has been fare free since 1997.[369] in february 2015, mayor bill de blasio announced that the city government would begin nyc ferry to extend ferry transportation to traditionally underserved communities in the city.[370][371] the first routes of nyc ferry opened in 2017.[372][373] all of the system's routes have termini in manhattan, and the lower east side and soundview routes also have intermediate stops on the east river.[374] the metro region's commuter rail lines converge at penn station and grand central terminal, on the west and east sides of midtown manhattan, respectively. they are the two busiest rail stations in the united states. about one third of users of mass transit and two thirds of railway passengers in the country live in new york and its suburbs.[377] amtrak provides inter city passenger rail service from penn station to boston, philadelphia, baltimore, and washington, d.c.; upstate new york and new england; cross canadian border service to toronto and montreal; and destinations in the southern and midwestern united states. the port authority bus terminal is the city's main intercity bus terminal and the world's busiest bus station. it serves 250,000 passengers on 7,000 buses each workday in a 1950 building designed to accommodate 60,000 daily passengers. a 2021 plan announced by the port authority would spend $10 billion to expand capacity and modernize the facility.[376][378][375] in 2024, the port authority announced plans for a new terminal that would be completed by 2032 and include a pair of office buildings to defray the costs of the project.[379] new york's iconic yellow taxicabs, which number 13,087 citywide and must have a medallion authorizing the pickup of street hails, are ubiquitous in the borough.[380] private vehicle for hire companies provide significant competition for taxicabs.[381] according to the government of new york city, manhattan had 19,676 bicycle commuters in 2017, roughly doubling from its total of 9,613 in 2012.[382] the commissioners' plan of 1811 called for twelve numbered "avenues" running north and south roughly parallel to the hudson river, each 100 feet (30 m) wide, with first avenue on the east side and twelfth avenue on the west side.[58][383] there are several intermittent avenues east of first avenue, including four additional lettered avenues running from avenue a eastward to avenue d in an area now known as alphabet city.[384] the numbered streets in manhattan run east west, and are generally 60 feet (18 m) wide, with about 200 feet (61 m) between streets.[58] the address algorithm of manhattan is used to estimate the closest east west cross street for building numbers on north south avenues.[385] according to the original commissioner's plan, there were 155 numbered crosstown streets,[386] but later the grid was extended up to the northernmost corner of manhattan island, where the last numbered street is 220th street, though the grid continues to 228th street in the borough's marble hill neighborhood.[387][388] fifteen crosstown streets were designated as 100 feet (30 m) wide, including 34th, 42nd, 57th and 125th streets,[389] which became some of the borough's most significant transportation and shopping venues. broadway, following the route of a native american trail, is the most notable of many exceptions to the grid, starting at bowling green in lower manhattan and continuing north for 13 miles (21 km) into the bronx.[390] in much of midtown manhattan, broadway runs at a diagonal to the grid, creating major named intersections at union square, madison square, herald square, times square, and columbus circle.[391][392] "crosstown streets" refers primarily to major east west streets connecting manhattan's east side and west side. the trip is notoriously frustrating for drivers because of heavy congestion on narrow local streets; absence of express roads other than the trans manhattan expressway at the far north end of manhattan island; and restricted to very limited crosstown automobile travel within central park. proposals to build highways traversing the island through manhattan's densest neighborhoods, namely the mid manhattan expressway across 34th street and the lower manhattan expressway through soho, failed in the 1960s.[393][394] in new york city, all turns at red lights are illegal unless a sign permitting such maneuvers is present, significantly shaping traffic patterns in manhattan.[395] another consequence of the strict grid plan of most of manhattan, and the grid's skew of approximately 28.9 degrees, is a phenomenon sometimes referred to as manhattanhenge (by analogy with stonehenge).[396] on may 28 and july 12, the sunset is aligned with the street grid lines, with the result that the sun is visible at or near the western horizon from street level.[396][397] a similar phenomenon occurs with the sunrise on the eastern horizon on december 5 and january 8.[398] the fdr drive and harlem river drive, both designed by controversial new york master planner robert moses,[399] comprise a single, long limited access parkway skirting the east side of manhattan along the east river and harlem river south of dyckman street. the henry hudson parkway is the corresponding parkway on the west side north of 57th street. being primarily an island, manhattan is linked to new york city's outer boroughs by bridges. manhattan has fixed highway connections with new jersey to its west by way of the george washington bridge, the holland tunnel, and the lincoln tunnel, and to three of the four other new york city boroughs the bronx to the northeast, and brooklyn and queens (both on long island) to the east and south. its only direct connection with the fifth new york city borough, staten island, is the free staten island ferry across new york harbor, located near battery park at manhattan's southern tip. it is also possible to travel on land to staten island by way of brooklyn, via the verrazzano narrows bridge. the 14 lane george washington bridge, the world's busiest motor vehicle bridge,[400][401] connects washington heights, in upper manhattan to bergen county in new jersey.[402] there are numerous bridges to the bronx across the harlem river, and five (listed north to south) the triborough (known officially as the robert f. kennedy bridge), ed koch queensboro (also known as the 59th street bridge), williamsburg, manhattan, and brooklyn bridges that cross the east river to connect manhattan to long island.[403] several tunnels also link manhattan island to new york city's outer boroughs and new jersey. the lincoln tunnel, which carries 120,000 vehicles a day under the hudson river between new jersey and midtown manhattan, is the busiest vehicular tunnel in the world.[404] the tunnel was built instead of a bridge to allow unfettered passage of large passenger and cargo ships that sail through new york harbor and up the hudson river to manhattan's piers. the holland tunnel, connecting lower manhattan to jersey city, new jersey, was the world's first mechanically ventilated vehicular tunnel.[405] the queens midtown tunnel, built to relieve congestion on the bridges connecting manhattan with queens and brooklyn, was the largest non federal project in its time when it was completed in 1940;[406] president franklin d. roosevelt was the first person to drive through it.[407] the brooklyn battery tunnel runs underneath battery park and connects the financial district at the southern tip of manhattan to red hook in brooklyn. several ferry services operate between new jersey and manhattan.[408] these ferries mainly serve midtown, battery park city, and wall street. manhattan has three public heliports: the east 34th street heliport (also known as the atlantic metro port), owned by new york city and run by the new york city economic development corporation (nycedc); the port authority downtown manhattan/wall street heliport, owned by the port authority of new york and new jersey and run by the nycedc; and the west 30th street heliport, owned by the hudson river park trust.[409] gas and electric service is provided by consolidated edison. manhattan witnessed the doubling of its natural gas supply when a new gas pipeline opened on november 1, 2013.[410] con edison operates the world's largest district steam system, which consists of 105 miles (169 km) of steam pipes, providing steam for heating, hot water, and air conditioning[411] by some 1,800 manhattan customers.[412] cable service is provided by time warner cable and telephone service is provided by verizon communications, although at&t is available as well. the new york city department of sanitation is responsible for garbage removal.[413] the bulk of the city's trash is disposed at mega dumps in pennsylvania, virginia, south carolina, and ohio (via transfer stations in new jersey, brooklyn and queens) since the 2001 closure of the fresh kills landfill on staten island.[414] a small amount of trash processed at transfer sites in new jersey is sometimes incinerated at waste to energy facilities. new york city has the largest clean air diesel hybrid and compressed natural gas bus fleet, which also operates in manhattan, in the country. it also has some of the first hybrid taxis, most of which operate in manhattan.[415] there are many hospitals in manhattan, including two of the 25 largest in the united states (as of 2017):[416] new york city is supplied with drinking water by the protected catskill mountains watershed.[417] as a result of the watershed's integrity and undisturbed natural water filtration system, new york is one of only four major cities in the us with a majority of drinking water pure enough not to require water treatment.[418] the croton watershed north of the city is undergoing construction of a us$3.2 billion water purification plant to augment new york city's water supply by an estimated 290 million gallons daily, representing a greater than 20% addition to the city's water availability.[419] water comes to manhattan through the tunnels 1 and 2, and in the future through tunnel no. 3, begun in 1970.[420]

central park is an urban park between the upper west side and upper east side neighborhoods of manhattan in new york city, and the first landscaped park in the united states. it is the sixth largest park in the city, containing 843 acres (341 ha), and the most visited urban park in the united states, with an estimated 42 million visitors annually as of 2016[update]. it is also one of the most filmed locations in the world. the creation of a large park in manhattan was first proposed in the 1840s, and a 778 acre (315 ha) park approved in 1853. in 1858, landscape architects frederick law olmsted and calvert vaux won a design competition for the park with their "greensward plan". construction began in 1857; existing structures, including a majority black settlement named seneca village, were seized through eminent domain and razed. the park's first areas were opened to the public in late 1858. additional land at the northern end of central park was purchased in 1859, and the park was completed in 1876. after a period of decline in the early 20th century, new york city parks commissioner robert moses started a program to clean up central park in the 1930s. the central park conservancy, created in 1980 to combat further deterioration in the late 20th century, refurbished many parts of the park starting in the 1980s. the park's main attractions include the ramble and lake, hallett nature sanctuary, the jacqueline kennedy onassis reservoir, and sheep meadow; amusement attractions such as wollman rink, central park carousel, and the central park zoo; formal spaces such as the central park mall and bethesda terrace; and the delacorte theater. the biologically diverse ecosystem has several hundred species of flora and fauna. recreational activities include carriage horse and bicycle tours, bicycling, sports facilities, and concerts and events such as shakespeare in the park. central park is traversed by a system of roads and walkways and is served by public transportation. its size and cultural position make it a model for the world's urban parks. its influence earned central park the designations of national historic landmark in 1963 and of new york city scenic landmark in 1974. central park is owned by the new york city department of parks and recreation but has been managed by the central park conservancy since 1998, under a contract with the municipal government in a public private partnership. the conservancy, a non profit organization, raises central park's annual operating budget and is responsible for all basic care of the park. central park is bordered by central park north at 110th street; central park south at 59th street; central park west at eighth avenue; and fifth avenue on the east. the park is adjacent to the neighborhoods of harlem to the north, midtown manhattan to the south, the upper west side to the west, and the upper east side to the east. it measures 2.5 miles (4.0 km) from north to south and 0.5 miles (0.80 km) from west to east.[4] central park is split into three sections: the "north end" extending above the jacqueline kennedy onassis reservoir; "mid park", between the reservoir to the north and the lake and conservatory water to the south; and "south end" below the lake and conservatory water.[5] the park has five visitor centers: charles a. dana discovery center, belvedere castle, chess & checkers house, the dairy, and columbus circle.[6][7] the park has been described as the first landscaped park in the united states.[8] it has natural looking plantings and landforms, having been almost entirely landscaped when built in the 1850s and 1860s.[9][10] it has eight lakes and ponds that were created artificially by damming natural seeps and flows.[11] there are several wooded sections, lawns, meadows, and minor grassy areas. there are 21 children's playgrounds,[12] and 6.1 miles (9.8 km) of drives.[4][13] central park is the sixth largest park in new york city, behind pelham bay park, the staten island greenbelt, freshkills park, van cortlandt park, and flushing meadows corona park,[14] with an area of 843 acres (341 ha; 1.317 sq mi; 3.41 km2).[15][16] central park constitutes its own united states census tract, numbered 143. according to american community survey five year estimates, the park was home to four females with a median age of 19.8.[17] though the 2010 united states census recorded 25 residents within the census tract, park officials have rejected the claim of anyone permanently living there.[18] central park is the most visited urban park in the united states[19] and one of the most visited tourist attractions worldwide,[20] with 42 million visitors in 2016.[21] the number of unique visitors is much lower; a central park conservancy report conducted in 2011 found that between eight and nine million people visited central park, with 37 to 38 million visits between them.[22] by comparison, there were 25 million visitors in 2009,[23] and 12.3 million in 1973.[24] the number of tourists as a proportion of total visitors is much lower: in 2009, one fifth of the 25 million park visitors recorded that year were estimated to be tourists.[23] the 2011 conservancy report gave a similar ratio of park usage: only 14% of visits are by people visiting central park for the first time. according to the report, nearly two thirds of visitors are regular park users who enter the park at least once weekly, and about 70% of visitors live in new york city. moreover, peak visitation occurred during summer weekends, and most visitors used the park for passive recreational activities such as walking or sightseeing, rather than for active sport.[22] the park is managed and maintained by the central park conservancy, a private, not for profit organization, under contract with the new york city department of parks and recreation (nyc parks).[15] the president of the conservancy is the ex officio administrator of central park who effectively oversees the work of both the park's private and public employees under the authority of the publicly appointed central park administrator, who reports to both the parks commissioner and the conservancy's president.[15] the central park conservancy was founded in 1980 as a nonprofit organization with a citizen board to assist with the city's initiatives to clean up and rehabilitate the park.[25][26] the conservancy took over the park's management duties from nyc parks in 1998, though nyc parks retained ownership of central park.[27] the conservancy provides maintenance support and staff training programs for other public parks in new york city, and has assisted with the development of new parks such as the high line and brooklyn bridge park.[28] central park is patrolled by its own new york city police department precinct, the 22nd (central park) precinct,[a] at the 86th street transverse. the precinct employs both regular police and auxiliary officers.[30] the 22nd precinct has a lower crime rate than in the 1990s, with crimes across all categories having decreased by 81.2% between 1990 and 2023. the precinct saw no murders, three rapes, 23 robberies, nine felony assaults, five burglaries, 48 grand larcenies, and no grand larcenies auto in 2023.[31] the citywide new york city parks enforcement patrol patrols central park, and the central park conservancy sometimes hires seasonal parks enforcement patrol officers to protect certain features such as the conservatory garden.[32] a free volunteer medical emergency service, the central park medical unit, operates within central park. the unit operates a rapid response patrol with bicycles, ambulances, and an all terrain vehicle. before the unit was established in 1975, municipal ems often took over 30 minutes to respond to incidents in the park.[33] between 1821 and 1855, new york city's population nearly quadrupled. as the city expanded northward up manhattan, people were drawn to the few existing open spaces, mainly cemeteries, for passive recreation. these were seen as escapes from the noise and chaotic life in the city, which at the time was almost entirely centered on lower manhattan.[34] the commissioners' plan of 1811, the outline for manhattan's modern street grid, included several smaller open spaces but not central park.[35] as such, john randel jr. had surveyed the grounds for the construction of intersections within the modern day park site. the only remaining surveying bolt from his survey is embedded in a rock north of the present dairy and the 66th street transverse, marking the location where west 65th street would have intersected sixth avenue.[36][37] by the 1840s, members of the city's elite were publicly calling for the construction of a new large park in manhattan.[34][38] at the time, manhattan's seventeen squares comprised a combined 165 acres (67 ha) of land, the largest of which was the 10 acre (4 ha) battery park at manhattan island's southern tip.[39] these plans were endorsed in 1844 by new york evening post editor william cullen bryant, and in 1851 by andrew jackson downing, one of the first american landscape designers.[38][40][41] mayor ambrose kingsland, in a message to the new york city common council on may 5, 1851, set forth the necessity and benefits of a large new park and proposed the council move to create such a park. kingsland's proposal was referred to the council's committee of lands, which endorsed the proposal. the committee chose jones's wood, a 160 acre (65 ha) tract of land between 66th and 75th streets on the upper east side, as the park's site, as bryant had advocated for jones wood. the acquisition was controversial because of its location, small size relative to other potential uptown tracts, and cost.[42][43][44] a bill to acquire jones's wood was invalidated as unconstitutional,[45][46] so attention turned to a second site: a 750 acre (300 ha) area known as "central park", bounded by 59th and 106th streets between fifth and eighth avenues.[45][47] croton aqueduct board president nicholas dean, who proposed the central park site, chose it because the croton aqueduct's 35 acre (14 ha), 150 million us gallon (570×10^6 l) collecting reservoir would be in the geographical center.[45][47] in july 1853, the new york state legislature passed the central park act, authorizing the purchase of the present day site of central park.[48][49] the board of land commissioners conducted property assessments on more than 34,000 lots in the area,[50] completing them by july 1855.[51] while the assessments were ongoing, proposals to downsize the plans were vetoed by mayor fernando wood.[51][52][53] at the time, the site was occupied by free black people and irish immigrants who had developed a property owning community there since 1825.[54][55] most of the central park site's residents lived in small villages, such as pigtown;[56][57] seneca village;[58] or in the school and convent at mount st. vincent's academy.[59] clearing began shortly after the land commission's report was released in october 1855,[50][60] and approximately 1,600 residents were evicted under eminent domain.[58][61][62] though supporters claimed that the park would cost just $1.7 million,[63] the total cost of the land ended up being $7.39 million (equivalent to $242 million in 2023), more than the price that the united states would pay for alaska a few years later.[64][65][66] in june 1856, fernando wood appointed a "consulting board" of seven people, headed by author washington irving, to inspire public confidence in the proposed development.[67][68] wood hired military engineer egbert ludovicus viele as the park's chief engineer, tasking him with a topographical survey of the site.[69][70][71] the following april, the state legislature passed a bill to authorize the appointment of four democratic and seven republican commissioners,[67][72] who had exclusive control over the planning and construction process.[73][74][75] though viele had already devised a plan for the park,[76] the commissioners disregarded it and retained him to complete only the topographical surveys.[77][78] the central park commission began hosting a landscape design contest shortly after its creation.[78][79][80] the commission specified that each entry contain extremely detailed specifications, as mandated by the consulting board.[80][81][82] thirty three firms or organizations submitted plans.[80][81] in april 1858, the park commissioners selected frederick law olmsted and calvert vaux's "greensward plan" as the winning design.[83][84][85] three other plans were designated as runners up and featured in a city exhibit.[84][86] unlike many of the other designs, which effectively integrated central park with the surrounding city, olmsted and vaux's proposal introduced clear separations with sunken transverse roadways.[87][88] the plan eschewed symmetry, instead opting for a more picturesque design.[87][89] it was influenced by the pastoral ideals of landscaped cemeteries such as mount auburn in cambridge, massachusetts, and green wood in brooklyn.[88][90] the design was also inspired by olmsted's 1850 visit to birkenhead park in birkenhead, england,[91] which is generally acknowledged as the first publicly funded civil park in the world.[92][93][94] according to olmsted, the park was "of great importance as the first real park made in this country a democratic development of the highest significance".[89][95] construction of central park's design was executed by a gamut of professionals. frederick law olmsted and calvert vaux were the primary designers, assisted by board member andrew haswell green, architect jacob wrey mould, master gardener ignaz anton pilat, and engineer george e. waring jr.[96][97] olmsted was responsible for the overall plan, while vaux designed some of the finer details. mould, who worked frequently with vaux, designed the central park esplanade and the tavern on the green building.[98] pilat was the park's chief landscape architect, whose primary responsibility was the importation and placement of plants within the park.[98][99] a "corps" of construction engineers and foremen, managed by superintending engineer william h. grant, were tasked with the measuring and constructing architectural features such as paths, roads, and buildings.[100][101] waring was one of the engineers working under grant's leadership and was in charge of land drainage.[102][103] central park was difficult to construct because of the generally rocky and swampy landscape.[9] around five million cubic feet (140,000 m3) of soil and rocks had to be transported out of the park, and more gunpowder was used to clear the area than was used at the battle of gettysburg during the american civil war.[10] more than 18,500 cubic yards (14,100 m3) of topsoil were transported from long island and new jersey, because the original soil was neither fertile nor sufficiently substantial to sustain the flora specified in the greensward plan.[9][10] modern steam powered equipment and custom tree moving machines augmented the work of unskilled laborers.[10] in total, over 20,000 individuals helped construct central park.[10] because of extreme precautions taken to minimize collateral damage, five laborers died during the project, at a time when fatality rates were generally much higher.[104] during the development of central park, superintendent olmsted hired several dozen mounted police officers, who were classified into two types of "keepers": park keepers and gate keepers.[9][105][106] the mounted police were viewed favorably by park patrons and were later incorporated into a permanent patrol.[9] the regulations were sometimes strict.[106] for instance, prohibited actions included games of chance, speech making, large congregations such as picnics, or picking flowers or other parts of plants.[106][107][108] these ordinances were effective: by 1866, there had been nearly eight million visits and only 110 arrests in the park's history.[109] in late august 1857, workers began building fences, clearing vegetation, draining the land, and leveling uneven terrain.[110][111] by the following month, chief engineer viele reported that the project employed nearly 700 workers.[111] olmsted employed workers using day labor, hiring men directly without any contracts and paying them by the day.[100] many of the laborers were irish immigrants or first or second generation irish americans, and some germans and italians;[112] there were no black or female laborers.[113][114] the workers were often underpaid,[114][115] and workers would often take jobs at other construction projects to supplement their income.[116] a pattern of seasonal hiring was established, wherein more workers would be hired and paid at higher rates during the summers.[114] for several months, the park commissioners faced funding issues,[74][117] and a dedicated workforce and funding stream was not secured until june 1858.[74] the landscaped upper reservoir was the only part of the park that the commissioners were not responsible for constructing; instead, the reservoir would be built by the croton aqueduct board. work on the reservoir started in april 1858.[118] the first major work in central park involved grading the driveways and draining the land in the park's southern section.[119][120] the lake in central park's southwestern section was the first feature to open to the public, in december 1858,[121] followed by the ramble in june 1859.[104][122] the same year, the new york state legislature authorized the purchase of an additional 65 acres (26 ha) at the northern end of central park, from 106th to 110th streets.[121][123] the section of central park south of 79th street was mostly completed by 1860.[124] the park commissioners reported in june 1860 that $4 million had been spent on the construction to date.[125] as a result of the sharply rising construction costs, the commissioners eliminated or downsized several features in the greensward plan.[126] based on claims of cost mismanagement, the new york state senate commissioned the swiss engineer julius kellersberger to write a report on the park.[127] kellersberger's report, submitted in 1861, stated that the commission's management of the park was a "triumphant success".[128][129] olmsted often clashed with the park commissioners, notably with chief commissioner green.[126][130] olmsted resigned in june 1862, and green was appointed to olmsted's position.[131][132] vaux resigned in 1863 because of what he saw as pressure from green.[133] as superintendent of the park, green accelerated construction, though having little experience in architecture.[131] he implemented a style of micromanagement, keeping records of the smallest transactions in an effort to reduce costs.[130][134] green finalized the negotiations to purchase the northernmost 65 acres (26 ha) of the park which was later converted into a "rugged" woodland and the harlem meer waterway.[131][134] when the american civil war began in 1861, the park commissioners decided to continue building central park, since significant parts of the park had already been completed.[135] only three major structures were completed during the civil war: the music stand and the casino restaurant, both later demolished, and the bethesda terrace and fountain.[136] by late 1861, the park south of 72nd street had been completed, except for various fences.[137] work had begun on the northern section of the park but was complicated by a need to preserve the historic mcgowan's pass.[138] the upper reservoir was completed the following year.[139] during this period central park began to gain popularity.[135] one of the main attractions was the "carriage parade", a daily display of horse drawn carriages that traversed the park.[135][140][141] park patronage grew steadily: by 1867, central park accommodated nearly three million pedestrians, 85,000 horses, and 1.38 million vehicles annually.[135] the park had activities for new yorkers of all social classes. while the wealthy could ride horses on bridle paths or travel in horse drawn carriages, almost everyone was able to participate in sports such as ice skating or rowing, or listen to concerts at the mall's bandstand.[142] olmsted and vaux were re hired in mid 1865.[143] several structures were erected, including the children's district, the ballplayers house, and the dairy in the southern part of central park. construction commenced on belvedere castle, harlem meer, and structures on conservatory water and the lake.[136][144] the tammany hall political machine, which was the largest political force in new york at the time, was in control of central park for a brief period beginning in april 1870.[145] a new charter created by tammany boss william m. tweed abolished the old 11 member commission and replaced it with one with five men composed of green and four other tammany connected figures.[145][146] subsequently, olmsted and vaux resigned again from the project in november 1870.[145] after tweed's embezzlement was publicly revealed in 1871, leading to his imprisonment, olmsted and vaux were re hired, and the central park commission appointed new members who were mostly in favor of olmsted.[147] one of the areas that remained relatively untouched was the underdeveloped western side of central park, though some large structures would be erected in the park's remaining empty plots.[148] by 1872, manhattan square had been reserved for the american museum of natural history, founded three years before at the arsenal. a corresponding area on the east side, originally intended as a playground, would later become the metropolitan museum of art.[148][149] in the final years of central park's construction, vaux and mould designed several structures for central park. the park's sheepfold (now tavern on the green) and ladies' meadow were designed by mould in 1870 1871, followed by the administrative offices on the 86th street transverse in 1872.[150] even though olmsted and vaux's partnership was dissolved by the end of 1872,[151] the park was not officially completed until 1876.[152] by the 1870s, the park's patrons increasingly came to include the middle and working class, and strict regulations were gradually eased, such as those against public gatherings.[153] because of the heightened visitor count, neglect by the tammany administration, and budget cuts demanded by taxpayers, the maintenance expenses for central park had reached a nadir by 1879.[107][154] olmsted blamed politicians, real estate owners, and park workers for central park's decline, though high maintenance costs were also a factor.[155] by the 1890s, the park faced several challenges: cars were becoming commonplace, and with the proliferation of amusements and refreshment stands, people were beginning to see the park as a recreational attraction.[156][157] the 1904 opening of the new york city subway displaced central park as the city's predominant leisure destination, as new yorkers could travel to farther destinations such as coney island beaches or broadway theaters for a five cent fare.[158] in the late 19th century the landscape architect samuel parsons took the position of new york city parks superintendent. a onetime apprentice of calvert vaux,[159] parsons helped restore the nurseries of central park in 1886.[160] parsons closely followed olmsted's original vision for the park, restoring central park's trees while blocking the placement of several large statues in the park.[161] under parsons' leadership, two circles (now duke ellington and frederick douglass circles) were constructed at the northern corners of the park.[162][163] he was removed in may 1911 following a lengthy dispute over whether an expense to replace the soil in the park was unnecessary.[161][164] a succession of tammany affiliated democratic mayors were indifferent toward central park.[165] several park advocacy groups were formed in the early 20th century. to preserve the park's character, the citywide parks and playground association, and a consortium of multiple central park civic groups operating under the parks conservation association, were formed in the 1900s and 1910s.[166] these associations advocated against such changes to the park as the construction of a library,[167] sports stadium,[168] a cultural center,[169] and an underground parking lot.[170] a third group, the central park association, was created in 1926.[166] the central park association and the parks and playgrounds association were merged into the park association of new york city two years later.[171] the heckscher playground named after philanthropist august heckscher, who donated the play equipment opened near its southern end in 1926,[172][173] and quickly became popular with poor immigrant families.[173] the following year, mayor jimmy walker commissioned landscape designer hermann w. merkel to create a plan to improve central park.[165] merkel's plans would combat vandalism and plant destruction, rehabilitate paths, and add eight new playgrounds, at a cost of $1 million.[174][175] one of the suggested modifications, underground irrigation pipes, were installed soon after merkel's report was submitted.[165][176] the other improvements outlined in the report, such as fences to mitigate plant destruction, were postponed due to the great depression.[177] in 1934, republican fiorello la guardia was elected mayor of new york city. he unified the five park related departments then in existence. newly appointed city parks commissioner robert moses was given the task of cleaning up the park, and he summarily fired many of the tammany era staff.[178] at the time, the lawns were filled with weeds and dust patches, while many trees were dying or already dead. monuments had been vandalized, equipment and walkways were broken, and ironwork was rusted.[178][179] moses's biographer robert caro later said, "the once beautiful mall looked like a scene of a wild party the morning after. benches lay on their backs, their legs jabbing at the sky..."[179] during the following year, the city's parks department replanted lawns and flowers, replaced dead trees and bushes, sandblasted walls, repaired roads and bridges, and restored statues.[180][181][182] the park menagerie was transformed into the modern central park zoo, and a rat extermination program was instituted within the zoo.[181] another dramatic change was moses' removal of the "hoover valley" shantytown at the north end of turtle pond, which became the 30 acre (12 ha) great lawn.[180][182] the western part of the pond at the park's southeast corner became an ice skating rink called wollman rink,[181] roads were improved or widened,[183] and twenty one playgrounds were added.[182] these projects used funds from the new deal program, and donations from the public.[182] moses removed sheep meadow's sheep to make way for the tavern on the green restaurant.[183][184] renovations in the 1940s and 1950s include a restoration of the harlem meer completed in 1943,[185] and a new boathouse completed in 1954.[186][187][188] moses began construction on several other recreational features in central park, such as playgrounds and ball fields.[189] one of the more controversial projects proposed during this time was a 1956 dispute over a parking lot for tavern in the green. the controversy placed moses, an urban planner known for displacing families for other large projects around the city, against a group of mothers who frequented a wooded hollow at the site of a parking lot.[189][190] though opposed by the parents, moses approved the destruction of part of the hollow. demolition work commenced after central park was closed for the night and was only halted after the threat of a lawsuit.[189][191] moses left his position in may 1960. no park commissioner since then has been able to exercise the same degree of power, nor did nyc parks remain in as stable a position in the aftermath of his departure. eight commissioners held the office in the twenty years following his departure.[192] the city experienced economic and social changes, with some residents moving to the suburbs.[193][194] interest in central park's landscape had long since declined, and it was now mostly being used for recreation.[195] several unrealized additions were proposed for central park in that decade, such as a public housing development,[196] a golf course,[197] and a "revolving world's fair".[198] the 1960s marked the beginning of an "events era" in central park that reflected the widespread cultural and political trends of the period.[199] the public theater's annual shakespeare in the park festival was settled in the delacorte theater,[200] and summer performances were instituted on the sheep meadow and the great lawn by the new york philharmonic orchestra and the metropolitan opera.[201] during the late 1960s, the park became the venue for rallies and cultural events such as the "love ins" and "be ins" of the period.[202] the same year, lasker rink opened in the northern part of the park; the facility served as an ice rink in winter and central park's only swimming pool in summer.[203] by the mid 1970s, managerial neglect resulted in a decline in park conditions. a 1973 report noted that the park suffered from severe erosion and tree decay, and that individual structures were being vandalized or neglected.[204] the central park community fund was subsequently created based on the recommendation of a report from a columbia university professor.[205] the fund then commissioned a study of the park's management and suggested the appointment of both a nyc parks administrator and a board of citizens.[206] in 1979, parks commissioner gordon davis established the office of central park administrator and appointed elizabeth barlow, the executive director of the central park task force, to the position.[207][208] the central park conservancy, a nonprofit organization with a citizen board, was founded the following year.[25][26] under the leadership of the central park conservancy, the park's reclamation began by addressing needs that could not be met within nyc parks' existing resources. the conservancy hired interns and a small restoration staff to reconstruct and repair unique rustic features, undertaking horticultural projects, and removing graffiti under the broken windows theory which advocated removing visible signs of decay.[209] the first structure to be renovated was the dairy, which reopened as the park's first visitor center in 1979.[210] the sheep meadow, which reopened the following year, was the first landscape to be restored.[211] bethesda terrace and fountain, the uss maine national monument, and the bow bridge were also rehabilitated.[212][213][214] by then, the conservancy was engaged in design efforts and long term restoration planning,[215] and in 1981, davis and barlow announced a 10 year, $100 million "central park management and restoration plan".[214] the long closed belvedere castle was renovated and reopened in 1983,[216][217] while the central park zoo closed for a full reconstruction that year.[208][215] to reduce the maintenance effort, large gatherings such as free concerts were canceled.[218] on completion of the planning stage in 1985, the conservancy launched its first campaign[194] and mapped out a 15 year restoration plan.[219] over the next several years, the campaign restored landmarks in the southern part of the park, such as grand army plaza[220] and the police station at the 86th street transverse;[221] while conservatory garden in the northeastern corner of the park was restored to a design by lynden b. miller.[222][223][224] real estate developer donald trump renovated the wollman rink in 1987 after plans to renovate it were delayed repeatedly.[225] the following year, the zoo reopened after a $35 million, four year renovation.[226] work on the northern end of the park began in 1989.[227] a$51 million campaign, announced in 1993,[228] resulted in the restoration of bridle trails,[229] the mall,[230] the harlem meer,[231] and the north woods,[227] and the construction of the dana discovery center on the harlem meer.[231] this was followed by the conservancy's overhaul of the 55 acres (22 ha) near the great lawn and turtle pond, which was completed in 1997.[232] the upper reservoir was decommissioned as a part of the city's water supply system in 1993,[233][234] and was renamed after former u.s. first lady jacqueline kennedy onassis the next year.[233][235] during the mid 1990s, the conservancy hired additional volunteers and implemented a zone based system of management throughout the park.[194] the conservancy assumed much of the park's operations in early 1998.[27] renovations continued through the first decade of the 21st century, and a project to restore the pond was commenced in 2000.[236] four years later, the conservancy replaced a chain link fence with a replica of the original cast iron fence that surrounded the upper reservoir.[237] it started refurbishing the ceiling tiles of the bethesda arcade,[238] which was completed in 2007.[239] soon after, the central park conservancy began restoring the ramble and lake,[240] in a project that was completed in 2012.[241] bank rock bridge was restored,[242][243] and the gill, which empties into the lake, was reconstructed to approximate its dramatic original form.[244] the final feature to be restored was the east meadow, which was rehabilitated in 2011.[245] in 2014, the new york city council proposed a study on the viability of banning vehicular traffic from the park's drives.[246] the next year, mayor bill de blasio announced that west and east drives north of 72nd street would be closed to vehicular traffic, because the city's data showed that closing the roads did not adversely impact traffic flows.[247] subsequently, in june 2018, the remaining drives south of 72nd street were closed to vehicular traffic.[248][249] several structures were also renovated in the 2010s. belvedere castle was closed in 2018 for an extensive renovation, reopening in june 2019.[250][251][252] later in 2018, it was announced that the delacorte theater would be closed from 2020 to 2022 for a $110 million rebuild.[253] the central park conservancy further announced that lasker rink would be closed for a $150 million renovation;[254] demolition of the existing rink began in 2021.[255] in march 2020, in response to the coronavirus pandemic, temporary field hospitals were set up within the park to treat overflow patients from area hospitals.[256][257] by mid 2023, the new york city government was considering erecting tents in central park to temporarily house asylum seekers. this move came after the federal government repealed an order authorizing title 42 expulsions of migrants, which had been implemented during the covid 19 pandemic.[258][259] a renovation of the chess and checkers house was completed in june 2023,[260] and a renovation of the delacorte theater began later that year.[261] in addition, pickleball courts were added to wollman rink in 2023 and became permanent the next year.[262][263] the central park conservancy allocated $64 million in early 2024 to fix sidewalks on 108 blocks immediately surrounding the park.[264] later that year, the conservancy announced plans to redesign the park's drives to provide bike lanes and pedestrian paths of consistent width.[265][266] a report by the conservancy also recommended constructing bike lanes on the 86th street transverse, as well as removing traffic lights from the park, which served little purpose due to the lack of vehicular traffic.[266] there are four different types of bedrock in manhattan. in central park, manhattan schist and hartland schist, which are both metamorphosed sedimentary rock, are exposed in various outcroppings. the other two types, fordham gneiss (an older deeper layer) and inwood marble (metamorphosed limestone which overlays the gneiss), do not surface in the park.[267][268][269] fordham gneiss, which consists of metamorphosed igneous rocks, was formed a billion years ago, during the grenville orogeny that occurred during the creation of an ancient super continent. manhattan schist and hartland schist were formed in the iapetus ocean during the taconic orogeny in the paleozoic era, about 450 million years ago, when the tectonic plates began to merge to form the supercontinent pangaea.[270] cameron's line, a fault zone that traverses central park on an east west axis, divides the outcroppings of hartland schist to the south and manhattan schist to the north.[271] various glaciers have covered the area of central park in the past, with the most recent being the wisconsin glacier which receded about 12,000 years ago. evidence of past glaciers can be seen throughout the park in the form of glacial erratics (large boulders dropped by the receding glacier) and north south glacial striations visible on stone outcroppings.[267][272][273] alignments of glacial erratics, called "boulder trains", are present throughout central park.[274] the most notable of these outcroppings is rat rock (also known as umpire rock), a circular outcropping at the southwestern corner of the park.[272][275] it measures 55 feet (17 m) wide and 15 feet (4.6 m) tall with different east, west, and north faces.[275][276] boulderers sometimes congregate there.[276] a single glacial pothole with yellow clay is near the southwest corner of the park.[277][278] the underground geology of central park was altered by the construction of several subway lines underneath it, and by the new york city water tunnel no. 3 approximately 700 feet (210 m) underground. excavations for the project have uncovered pegmatite, feldspar, quartz, biotite, and several metals.[279] there are three wooded areas in central park: north woods, the ramble, and hallett nature sanctuary.[280] north woods, the largest of the woodlands, is at the northwestern corner of central park.[281][282][283] it covers about 90 acres (36 ha) adjacent to north meadow.[284] the name sometimes applies to other attractions in the park's northern end; these adjacent features plus the area of north woods can be 200 acres (81 ha).[227] north woods contains the 55 acre (22 ha) ravine, a forest with deciduous trees on its northwestern slope, and the loch, a small stream that winds diagonally through north woods.[283][285][286] the ramble is in the southern third of the park next to the lake.[5][287][288] covering 36 to 38 acres (15 to 15 ha), it contains a series of winding paths.[288] the area contains a diverse selection of vegetation and other flora, which attracts a plethora of birds.[287][288] at least 250 species of birds have been spotted in the ramble over the years.[288][289] historically, the ramble was known as a place for private homosexual encounters due to its seclusion.[290] the hallett nature sanctuary is at the southeastern corner of central park.[5][291][292] it is the smallest wooded area at 4 acres (1.6 ha).[293] originally known as the promontory, it was renamed after civic activist and birder george hervey hallett jr. in 1986.[292][293][294] the hallett sanctuary was closed to the public in the 1930s, and it was renovated and restored starting in 2001.[295] the sanctuary opened for periodic guided tours in 2013 and for public open hours in 2016.[295][296] the central park conservancy classifies its remaining green space into four types of lawns, labeled alphabetically based on usage and the amount of maintenance needed. there are seven high priority "a lawns", collectively covering 65 acres (26 ha), that are heavily used: sheep meadow, great lawn, north meadow, east meadow, conservatory garden, heckscher ballfields, and the lawn bowling and croquet greens near sheep meadow. these are permanently surrounded by fences, are constantly maintained, and are closed during the off season. another 16 lawns, covering 37 acres (15 ha), are classed as "b lawns" and are fenced off only during off seasons, while an additional 69 acres (28 ha) are "c lawns" and are only occasionally fenced off. the lowest prioritized type of turf, "d lawns", cover 162 acres (66 ha) and are open year round with few barriers or access restrictions.[297] central park is home to numerous bodies of water.[11][87] the northernmost lake, harlem meer, is near the northeastern corner of the park and covers nearly 11 acres (4.5 ha).[298][299] located in a wooded area of oak, cypress, and beech trees, it was named after harlem, one of manhattan's first suburban communities, and was built after the completion of the southern portion of the park. harlem meer allows catch and release fishing.[298] it is fed by two interconnected water features: the pool, a pond within the north woods fed by drinking water,[300] and the loch, a small stream with three cascades that winds through the north woods.[301][281] these are all adapted from a single watercourse called montayne's rivulet, originally fed from a natural spring but later replenished by the city's water system.[302][303] lasker rink is above the mouth of the loch where it drains into the harlem meer.[304][305] south of harlem meer and the pool is central park's largest lake, the jacqueline kennedy onassis reservoir, known as the central park reservoir before 1994.[306] it was constructed between 1858 and 1862. covering an area of 106 acres (43 ha) between 86th and 96th streets, the reservoir reaches a depth of more than 40 feet (12 m) in places and contains about 1 billion u.s. gallons (3.8 billion liters) of water.[307][308] the onassis reservoir was created as a new, landscaped storage reservoir to the north of the croton aqueduct's rectangular receiving reservoir.[139] because of the onassis reservoir's shape, east drive was built as a straight path, with little clearance between the reservoir to the west and fifth avenue to the east.[309] it was decommissioned in 1993[233][234] and renamed after jacqueline kennedy onassis the following year, after her death.[233][235] the turtle pond is at the southern edge of the great lawn. the pond was originally part of the croton receiving reservoir.[310][311] the receiving reservoir was drained starting in 1930,[312][313] and the dry reservoir bed was temporarily used as a homeless encampment when filling stopped during the great depression.[311][314][315] the great lawn was completed in 1937 on the site of the reservoir.[316] until 1987, it was known as belvedere lake, after the castle at its southwestern corner.[310][311] the lake, south of the 79th street transverse, covers nearly 18 acres (7.3 ha).[317] originally, it was part of the sawkill creek, which flowed near the american museum of natural history.[318][319] the lake was among the first features to be completed, opening to skaters in december 1858.[121] it was intended to accommodate boats in the summer and ice skaters in winter.[121][317] the loeb boathouse, on the eastern shore of the lake, rents out rowboats, kayaks, and gondolas, and houses a restaurant.[187][188][320] the lake is spanned by bow bridge at its center,[320] and its northern inlet, bank rock bay, is spanned by the bank rock or oak bridge.[321][319] ladies' pond, spanned by two bridges on the western end of the lake, was infilled in the 1930s.[319] directly east of the lake is conservatory water,[5] on the site of an unbuilt formal garden.[322] the shore of conservatory water contains the kerbs memorial boathouse,[323] where patrons can rent and navigate model boats.[322][324][325] in the park's southeast corner is the pond, with an area of 3.5 acres (1.4 ha).[326][327] the pond was adapted from part of the former devoor's mill stream, which used to flow into the east river at the modern day neighborhood of turtle bay.[11][328] the western section of the pond was converted into wollman rink in 1950.[181][329][330] central park is biologically diverse. a 2013 survey of park species by william e. macaulay honors college found 571 total species,[331][332] including 173 species that were not previously known to live there.[333] according to a 2011 survey, central park had more than 20,000 trees,[334][335][336] representing a decrease from the 26,000 trees that were recorded in the park in 1993.[337] the majority of them are native to new york city, but there are several clusters of non native species.[338] with few exceptions, the trees in central park were mostly planted or placed manually. over four million trees, shrubs, and plants representing approximately 1,500 species were planted or imported to the park.[10] in central park's earliest years, two plant nurseries were maintained within the park boundaries: a demolished nursery near the arsenal, and the still extant conservatory garden.[339] central park conservancy later took over regular maintenance of the park's flora, allocating gardeners to one of 49 "zones" for maintenance purposes.[340] central park contains ten "great tree" clusters that are specially recognized by nyc parks. these include four individual american elms and one american elm grove; the 600 pine trees in the arthur ross pinetum; a black tupelo in the ramble; 35 yoshino cherries on the east side of the onassis reservoir; one of the park's oldest london planes at 96th street; and a tetradium (formerly euodia) at heckscher playground.[338][341] the american elms in central park are the largest remaining stands in the northeastern united states, protected by their isolation from the dutch elm disease that devastated the tree throughout its native range.[337] there are several "tree walks" that run through central park.[336] central park contains various migratory birds during their spring and fall migration on the atlantic flyway.[342] the first official list of birds observed in central park, which numbered 235 species, was published in forest and stream in 1886 by augustus g. paine jr. and lewis b. woodruff.[343][344] overall, 303 bird species have been seen in the park since the first official list of records was published,[342] and an estimated 200 species are spotted every season.[345] no single group is responsible for tracking central park's bird species.[346] some of the more famous birds include a male red tailed hawk called pale male, who made his perch on an apartment building overlooking central park in 1991.[347][348] a mandarin duck nicknamed mandarin patinkin received international media attention in late 2018 and early 2019[349] due to its colorful appearance and the species' presence outside its native range in east asia.[350] another bird, an eurasian eagle owl named flaco, gained attention in 2023 when he escaped from the central park zoo after his enclosure was vandalized.[351] more infamously, eugene schieffelin released 100 imported european starlings in central park in 1890 1891, which led to them becoming an invasive species across north america.[352][353] central park has approximately ten species of mammals as of 2013[update].[332] bats, a nocturnal order, have been found in dark crevices.[354] because of the prevalence of raccoons, the parks department posts rabies advisories.[355] eastern gray squirrels, eastern chipmunks, and virginia opossums inhabit the park.[356] a 2019 squirrel census found there were 2,373 eastern gray squirrels in central park.[357] central park has also been home to coyotes.[358] there are 223 invertebrate species in central park.[332] nannarrup hoffmani, a centipede species discovered in central park in 2002, is one of the smallest centipedes in the world at about 0.4 inches (10 mm) long.[359] the more prevalent asian long horned beetle is an invasive species that has infected trees in long island and manhattan, including in central park.[360][361] turtles, fish, and frogs live in central park.[332] there are five turtle species: red eared sliders, snapping turtles, painted turtles, musk turtles, and box turtles.[310] most of the turtles live in turtle pond, and many of these are former pets that were released into the park.[331] the fish are scattered more widely, but they include several freshwater species,[362] such as the snakehead, an invasive species.[363] catch and release fishing is allowed in the lake, pond, and harlem meer.[362][364] central park is a habitat for two amphibian species: the american bullfrog and the green frog.[365] the park contained snakes in the late 19th century,[366] though marie winn, who wrote about wildlife in central park, said in a 2008 interview that the snakes had died off.[367] central park is surrounded by a 29,025 foot long (8,847 m), 3 foot 10 inch high (117 cm) stone wall. it initially contained 18 unnamed gates.[368] in april 1862, the central park commissioners adopted a proposal to name each gate with "the vocations to which this city owes its metropolitan character", such as miners, scholars, artists, or hunters.[368][369] the park grew to contain 20 named gates by the late 20th century,[370][371] four of which are accessed from plazas at each corner of the park.[5][370] no named gates were added between 1862 and 2022,[372] when the gate of the exonerated at lenox avenue and central park north was dedicated in honor of the central park five.[373] columbus circle is a circular plaza at the southwestern corner, at the junction of central park west/eighth avenue, broadway, and 59th street (central park south).[5][374] built in the 1860s,[374] it contains the merchant's gate entrance to the park.,[370] and its largest feature is the 1892 columbus monument[374][375] and was the subject of controversies in the 2010s.[376][377] the 1913 uss maine national monument is just outside the park entrance.[378] the square grand army plaza is on the southeastern corner, at the junction with fifth avenue and 59th street.[5] its largest feature is the pulitzer fountain, which was completed in 1916 along with the plaza itself.[379] the plaza contains the william tecumseh sherman statue, dedicated in 1903.[380] duke ellington circle, at the northeastern corner, forms the junction between fifth avenue and central park north/110th street.[5] it contains the duke ellington memorial, dedicated in 1997.[381] duke ellington circle is adjacent to the pioneers' gate.[370] frederick douglass circle is on the northwestern corner, at the junction with central park west/eighth avenue and central park north/110th street.[5] it was named for douglass in 1950.[382] the center of the circle contains a memorial to frederick douglass, dedicated in 2011.[383] the dana discovery center was built in 1993 at the northeast section of the park, on the north shore of the harlem meer.[5][282][304] blockhouse no. 1, the oldest extant structure within central park, and built before the park's creation, sits in the northwest section of the park. it was erected as part of fort clinton during the war of 1812.[282][384][304] the blockhouse is near mcgowan's pass, rocky outcroppings that also once contained fort fish and nutter's battery.[385] the lasker rink, a skating rink and swimming pool facility, formerly occupied the southwest corner of the harlem meer.[386] the conservatory garden, the park's only formal garden, is entered through the vanderbilt gate at fifth avenue and 105th street.[5][387] the tarr family playground, north meadow recreation center, tennis courts, and east meadow sit between the loch to the north and the reservoir to the south.[5][388] the north woods takes up the rest of the northern third of the park. the areas in the northern section of the park were developed later than the southern section and are not as heavily used, so there are several unnamed features.[389] the park's northern portion was intended as the "natural section" in contrast to the landscaped "pastoral section" to the south.[87] the area between the 86th and 96th street transverses is mostly occupied by the onassis reservoir. directly south of the reservoir is the great lawn and turtle pond. the lawn is bordered by the metropolitan museum of art's fifth avenue building to the east, turtle pond to the south, and summit rock to the west.[5] summit rock, the highest point in central park at 137.5 feet (41.9 m),[390][391] abuts diana ross playground to the south and the seneca village site, occupied by the toll family playground, to the north.[5] turtle pond's western shore contains belvedere castle, delacorte theater, the shakespeare garden, and marionette theatre.[5] the section between the 79th street transverse and terrace drive at 72nd street contains three main natural features: the forested ramble, the l shaped lake, and conservatory water. cherry hill is to the south of the lake, while cedar hill is to the east.[5][282] the southernmost part of central park, below terrace drive, contains several children's attractions and other flagship features.[5] it contains many of the structures built in central park's initial stage of construction, designed in the victorian gothic style.[392] directly facing the southeastern shore of the lake is a bi level hall called bethesda terrace, which contains an elaborate fountain on its lower level.[392][393][394] bethesda terrace connects to central park mall, a landscaped walkway and the only formal feature in the greensward plan.[5][392] near the southwestern shore of the lake is strawberry fields, a memorial to john lennon who was murdered nearby;[5][395] sheep meadow, a lawn originally intended for use as a parade ground;[396] and tavern on the green, a restaurant.[5] the southern border of central park contains the "children's district",[397] an area that includes heckscher playground, the central park carousel, the ballplayers house, and the chess and checkers house.[5][397] wollman rink/victorian gardens, the central park zoo and children's zoo, the arsenal, and the pond and hallett nature sanctuary are nearby.[5][282] the arsenal, a red brick building designed by martin e. thompson in 1851, has been nyc parks' headquarters since 1934.[398][399] there are 21 children's playgrounds in central park. the largest, at three acres (1.2 ha), is heckscher playground.[12] central park includes 36 ornamental bridges, each of a different design.[400][401][398] the bridges are generally designed in the gothic revival or romanesque revival styles and are made of wood, stone, or cast iron.[398] "rustic" shelters and other structures were originally spread out through the park. most have been demolished over the years, and several have been restored.[398][402][403] the park contains around 9,500 benches in three styles, of which nearly half have small engraved tablets of some kind, installed as part of central park's "adopt a bench" program. these engravings typically contain short personalized messages and can be installed for at least $10,000 apiece. "handmade rustic benches" can cost more than half a million dollars and are only granted when the honoree underwrites a major park project.[404][405] twenty nine sculptures have been erected within central park's boundaries.[392][406][407] most of the sculptures were not part of the greensward plan, but were nevertheless included to placate wealthy donors when appreciation of art increased in the late 19th century.[159][408][409] though vaux and mould proposed 26 statues in the terrace in 1862, these were eliminated because they were too expensive.[408] more sculptures were added through the late 19th century, and by 1890s, there were 24 in the park.[410] several busts of authors and poets are on literary walk adjacent to the central park mall.[392][411][412] another cluster of sculptures, around the zoo and conservancy water, are statues of characters from children's stories. a third sculpture grouping primarily depicts "subjects in nature" such as animals and hunters.[392] several sculptures stand out because of their geography and topography.[392] alice in wonderland margaret delacorte memorial (1959), a sculpture of alice, is at conservatory water.[413][414] angel of the waters (1873), by emma stebbins, is the centerpiece of bethesda fountain;[394][408] it was the first large public sculpture commission for an american woman[415] and the only statue included in the original park design.[408] balto (1925), a statue of balto, the sled dog who became famous during the 1925 serum run to nome, is near east drive and east 66th street.[416] king jagiello monument (1939), a bronze monument installed in 1945, is at the east end of turtle pond.[417] women's rights pioneers monument (2020), a monument of sojourner truth, susan b. anthony, and elizabeth cady stanton,[418] was the city's first statue to depict a female historical figure.[419][420] cleopatra's needle, a red granite obelisk west of the metropolitan museum of art,[5] is the oldest human made structure in central park.[421] the needle in central park is one of three cleopatra's needles that were originally erected at the temple of ra in heliopolis in ancient egypt around 1450 bc by the pharaoh thutmose iii.[421][422][423] the hieroglyphs were inscribed about 200 years later by pharaoh rameses ii to glorify his military victories. the needles are so named because they were later moved to in front of the caesarium in alexandria, a temple originally built by cleopatra vii of egypt in honor of mark antony.[424] the needle in central park arrived in late 1880 and was dedicated early the following year.[421][423] the strawberry fields memorial, near central park west and 72nd street,[5] is a memorial commemorating john lennon, who was murdered outside the nearby dakota apartment building. the city dedicated strawberry fields in lennon's honor in april 1981,[425] and the memorial was completely rebuilt and rededicated on what would have been lennon's 45th birthday, october 9, 1985.[426] countries from all around the world contributed trees, and italy donated the "imagine" mosaic in the center of the memorial. it has since become the site of impromptu memorial gatherings for other notables.[427][428] for 16 days in 2005, central park was the setting for christo and jeanne claude's installation the gates, an exhibition that had been planned since 1979.[429] although the project was the subject of mixed reactions, it was a major attraction for the park while it was open, drawing over a million people.[430] central park contains two indoor restaurants. tavern on the green, at central park west and west 67th street, was built in 1870 as a sheepfold and was converted into a restaurant in 1934.[181][183][184] the tavern on the green was expanded between 1974 and 1976;[431] it was closed in 2009 and reopened five years later after a renovation.[432] the loeb boathouse restaurant is at the loeb boathouse, on the lake, near fifth avenue between 74th and 75th streets.[187][188] though the boathouse was constructed in 1954,[188] its restaurant opened in 1983.[433] in the late 19th century, west and east drives was a popular place for carriage rides, though only five percent of the city was able to afford a carriage. one of the main attractions in the park's early years was the introduction of the "carriage parade", a daily display of horse drawn carriages that traversed the park.[135][434][141] the introduction of the automobile caused the carriage industry to die out by world war i,[434] though the carriage horse tradition was revived in 1935.[435] the carriages have become a symbolic institution of the city; for instance, in a much publicized event after the september 11 attacks, mayor rudy giuliani went to the stables to ask the drivers to go back to work to help return a sense of normality.[435] some activists, celebrities, and politicians have questioned the ethics of the carriage horse industry and called for its end.[436] the history of accidents involving spooked horses came under scrutiny in the 2000s and 2010s after reports of horses collapsing and even dying.[437][438] supporters of the trade say it needs to be reformed rather than shut down.[439] some replacements have been proposed, including electric vintage cars.[440] bill de blasio, in his successful 2013 mayoral campaign, pledged to eliminate horse carriage tours if he was elected;[441] as of august 2018[update], had only succeeded in relocating the carriage pick up areas.[442] pedicabs operate mostly in the southern part of the park, as horse carriages do. the pedicabs have been criticized: there have been reports of pedicab drivers charging exorbitant fares of several hundred dollars.[443][444] the park's drives, which are 6.1 miles (9.8 km) long, are used heavily by runners, joggers, pedestrians, bicyclists, and inline skaters.[4][13] the park drives contain protected bike lanes[445] and are used as the home course for the racing series of the century road club association, a usa cycling sanctioned amateur cycling club.[446] in 2021, e scooters were legalized in new york, including in central park.[447] the park is used for professional running, and the new york road runners designated a 5 mile (8.0 km) running loop within central park.[448] the new york city marathon course uses several miles of drives within central park and finishes outside tavern on the green;[449] from 1970 through 1975, the race was held entirely in central park.[450] there are 26 baseball fields in central park: eight on the great lawn, six at heckscher ballfields near columbus circle, and twelve in the north meadow.[451][452][453] 12 tennis courts, six non regulation soccer fields (which overlap with the north meadow ball fields), four basketball courts, and a recreation center are in the north meadow.[453][454] an additional soccer field and four basketball courts are at great lawn.[453] four volleyball courts are in the southern part of the park.[455] central park has two ice skating rinks: wollman rink in its southern portion and lasker rink in its northern portion.[456] during summer, the former is the site of victorian gardens seasonal amusement park,[457] and the latter converts to an outdoor swimming pool.[458][459] central park's glaciated rock outcroppings attract climbers, especially boulderers, but the quality of the stone is poor, and the climbs present so little challenge that it has been called "one of america's most pathetic boulders".[275] the two most renowned spots for boulderers are rat rock and cat rock. other rocks frequented by climbers, mostly at the south end of the park, include dog rock, duck rock, rock n' roll rock, and beaver rock.[460] central park has been the site of concerts almost since its inception. originally, they were hosted in the ramble, but these were moved to the concert ground next to the mall in the 1870s.[461] the weekend concerts hosted in the mall drew tens of thousands of visitors from all social classes.[462] since 1923, concerts have been held in naumburg bandshell, a bandshell of indiana limestone on the mall.[463] named for banker elkan naumburg, who funded its construction, the bandshell has deteriorated over the years but has never been fully restored.[464] the oldest free classical music concert series in the united states the naumburg orchestral concerts, founded in 1905 is hosted in the bandshell.[465] other large concerts include the concert in central park, a benefit performance by simon & garfunkel in 1981,[466] and garth: live from central park, a free concert by garth brooks in 1997.[467] several arts groups are dedicated to performing in central park.[465] these include central park brass, which performs concert series,[468] and the new york classical theatre, which produces an annual series of plays.[469] there are several regular summer events. the public theater presents free open air theater productions, such as shakespeare in the park, in the delacorte theater.[470][471] the city parks foundation offers central park summerstage, a series of free performances including music, dance, spoken word, and film presentations, often featuring famous performers.[465][472] additionally, the new york philharmonic gives an open air concert on the great lawn yearly during the summer,[465] and from 1967 until 2007, the metropolitan opera presented two operas in concert each year.[473] every august since 2003, the central park conservancy has hosted the central park film festival, a series of free film screenings.[474] central park incorporates a system of pedestrian walkways, scenic drives, bridle paths, and transverse roads to aid traffic circulation,[371] and it is easily accessible via several subway stations and bus routes.[475] the new york city subway's ind eighth avenue line (a, ​b, ​c, and ​d trains) runs along the western edge of the park. most of the eighth avenue line stations on central park west serve only the local b and ​c trains, while the 59th street columbus circle station is additionally served by the express a and ​d trains and the irt broadway seventh avenue line (1 train). the irt lenox avenue line (2 and ​3 trains) has a station at central park north. from there the line curves southwest under the park and heads west under 104th street. on the southeastern corner of the park, the bmt broadway line (n, ​r, and ​w trains) has a station at fifth avenue and 59th street.[476] the 63rd street lines (f, <f>​, and q trains) pass underneath without stopping,[476] and the line contains a single ventilation shaft within the park, west of fifth avenue and 63rd street.[279] various bus routes pass through central park or stop along its boundaries. the m10 bus stops along central park west, while the m5 and part of the m7 runs along central park south, and the m2, m3 and m4 run along central park north. the m1, m2, m3, and m4 run southbound along fifth avenue with corresponding northbound bus service on madison avenue. the m66, m72, m79 sbs (select bus service), m86 sbs, m96 and m106 buses use the transverse roads across central park. the m12, m20 and m104 only serve columbus circle on the south end of the park, and the m31 and m57 run on 57th street two blocks from the park's south end but do not stop on the boundaries of the park.[475] some of the buses running on the edge of central park replaced former streetcar routes that formerly traveled across manhattan. these streetcar routes included the sixth avenue line, which became the m5 bus, and the eighth avenue line, which became the m10.[477] only one streetcar line traversed central park: the 86th street crosstown line, the predecessor to the m86 bus.[478] central park contains four transverse roadways that carry crosstown traffic across the park.[5][88][371] from south to north, they are at 66th street, 79th street, 86th street, and 97th street; the transverse roads were originally numbered sequentially in that order. the 66th street transverse connects the discontinuous sections of 65th and 66th streets on either side of the park. the 79th street transverse links west 81st and east 79th streets, while the 86th street transverse links west 86th street with east 84th and 85th streets. the 97th street transverse likewise joins the disconnected segments of 96th and 97th streets.[5] each roadway carries two lanes, one in each direction, and is sunken below the level of the rest of the park to minimize the transverses' visual impact on it.[88][371] the transverse roadways are open even when the park is closed.[479] the 66th street transverse was the first to be finished, having opened in december 1859.[480] the 79th street transverse which passed under vista rock, central park's second highest point was completed by a railroad contractor because of their experience in drilling through hard rock;[481] it opened in december 1860. the 86th and 97th street transverses opened in late 1862.[480] by the 1890s, maintenance had decreased to the point where the 86th street transverse handled most crosstown traffic because the other transverse roads had been so poorly maintained.[163] both ends of the 79th street transverse were widened in 1964 to accommodate increased traffic.[482] generally, the transverses were not maintained as frequently as the rest of the park, though being used more frequently than the park proper.[483] the park has three scenic drives that travel through it vertically.[5] they have multiple traffic lights at the intersections with pedestrian paths, although there are some arches and bridges where pedestrian and drive traffic can cross without intersection.[371][400][401] to discourage park patrons from speeding, the designers incorporated extensive curves in the park drives.[484][485] the drives range from 22 to 42 feet (6.7 to 12.8 m) wide, and there are more than 50 traffic signals along these drives.[266] .mw parser output .vanchor>:target~.vanchor text{background color:#b1d2ff}@media screen{html.skin theme clientpref night .mw parser output .vanchor>:target~.vanchor text{background color:#0f4dc9}}@media screen and (prefers color scheme:dark){html.skin theme clientpref os .mw parser output .vanchor>:target~.vanchor text{background color:#0f4dc9}}west drive is the westernmost of the park's three vertical "drives". the road, which carries southbound bicycle and horse carriage traffic, winds through the western part of central park, connecting lenox avenue/central park north with seventh avenue/central park south and central drive.[5] center drive (also known as the "central park lower loop"[486]) connects northbound bicycle and carriage traffic from midtown at central park south/sixth avenue to east drive near the 66th street transverse. the street generally goes east and then north, forming the bottom part of the central park loop. the attractions along center drive include victorian gardens, the central park carousel, and the central park mall.[5] east drive, the easternmost of the three drives, connects northbound bicycle and carriage traffic from midtown to the upper west side at lenox avenue. the street is renowned for its country scenery and free concerts. it generally straddles the east side of the park along fifth avenue. the drive passes by the central park zoo around 63rd street and the metropolitan museum of art from 80th to 84th streets. unlike the rest of the drive system, which is generally serpentine, east drive is straight between the 86th and 96th street transverses, because it is between fifth avenue and the jacqueline kennedy onassis reservoir.[5] east drive is known as the "elite carriage parade", because it was where the carriage procession occurred at the time of the park's opening, and because only five percent of the city was able to afford the carriage. in the late 19th century, west and east drives were popular places for carriage rides.[141] two other scenic drives cross the park horizontally. terrace drive is at 72nd street and connects west and east drives, passing over bethesda terrace and fountain. the 102nd street crossing, further north near the street of the same name, is a former carriage drive connecting west and east drives.[5] in central park's earliest years, the speed limits were set at 5 miles per hour (8.0 km/h) for carriages and 6 mph (9.7 km/h) for horses, which were later raised to 7 and 10 mph (11 and 16 km/h) respectively. commercial vehicles and buses were banned from the park.[484] automobiles became more common in central park during the 1900s and 1910s, and they often broke the speed limits, resulting in crashes. to increase safety, the gravel roads were paved in 1912, and the carriage speed limit was raised to 15 mph (24 km/h) two years later. with the proliferation of cars among the middle class in the 1920s, traffic increased on the drives, to as many as eight thousand cars per hour in 1929.[434] the roads were still dangerous; in the first ten months of 1929, eight people were killed and 249 were injured in 338 separate collisions.[487] in november 1929, the scenic drives were converted from two way traffic to unidirectional traffic.[488] further improvements were made in 1932 when forty two traffic lights were installed along the scenic drives, and the speed limit was lowered to 25 miles per hour (40 km/h). the signals were coordinated so that drivers could go through all of the green lights if they maintained a steady speed of 25 miles per hour (40 km/h).[434][489] the drives were experimentally closed to automotive traffic on weekends beginning in 1967, for exclusive use by pedestrians and bicyclists.[490] in subsequent years, the scenic drives were closed to automotive traffic for most of the day during the summer. by 1979, the drives were only open during rush hours and late evenings during the summer.[491] legislation was proposed in october 2014 to conduct a study to make the park car free in summer 2015.[249] in 2015, mayor bill de blasio announced the permanent closure of west and east drives north of 72nd street to vehicular traffic as it was proven that closing the roads did not adversely impact traffic.[492] after most of the central park loop drives were closed to vehicular traffic, the city performed a follow up study. the city found that west drive was open for two hours during the morning rush period and was used by an average of 1,050 vehicles a day, while east drive was open 12 hours a day and was used by an average of 3,400 vehicles daily.[493] subsequently, all cars were banned from east drive in january 2018.[494] in april 2018, de blasio announced that the entirety of the three loop drives would be closed permanently to traffic.[493][495] the closure was put into effect in june 2018.[248][249] during the early 21st century, there were numerous collisions in central park involving cyclists. the 2014 death of jill tarlov, after she was hit by a cyclist on west 63rd street, called attention to the issue.[496] in 2011, residents of nearby communities unsuccessfully petitioned the nypd to increase enforcement of cycling rules within the park.[497] in the mid 20th century, central park had a reputation for being very dangerous, especially after dark.[498] such a viewpoint was reinforced following a 1941 incident when 12 year old jerome dore fatally stabbed 15 year old james o'connell in the northern section of the park.[499][500] local tabloids cited this incident and several other crimes as evidence of a highly exaggerated "crime wave". though recorded crime had indeed increased since central park opened in the late 1850s, this was in line with crime trends seen in the rest of the city.[498] central park's reputation for crime was reinforced by its worldwide name recognition, and the fact that crimes in the park were covered disproportionately compared to crimes in the rest of the city. for instance, in 1973 the new york times wrote stories about 20% of murders that occurred citywide but wrote about three of the four murders that took place in central park that year. by the 1970s and 1980s, the number of murders in the police precincts north of central park was 18 times higher than the number of murders within the park itself, and even in the precincts south of the park, the number of murders was three times as high.[501] the park was the site of numerous high profile crimes during the late 20th century. of these, two particularly notable cases shaped public perception against the park.[501] in 1986, robert chambers murdered jennifer levin in what was later called the "preppy murder."[502][503] three years later, an investment banker was raped and brutally beaten in what came to be known as the central park jogger case.[504][505] conversely, other crimes such as the 1984 gang rape of two homeless women were barely reported.[501] after world war ii, it was feared that gay men perpetrated sex crimes and attracted violence.[506] other problems in the 1970s and 1980s included a drug epidemic, a large homeless presence, vandalism, and neglect.[218][507][508] as crime has declined in new york city, many of these negative perceptions have waned.[501] safety measures keep the number of crimes in the park to fewer than 100 per year as of 2019[update], down from approximately 1,000 in the early 1980s.[31] some well publicized crimes have occurred since then: for instance, on june 11, 2000, following the puerto rican day parade, gangs of drunken men sexually assaulted women in the park.[509] permission to hold issue centered rallies in central park, similar to the be ins of the 1960s, has been met with increasingly stiff resistance from the city. during some 2004 protests, the organization united for peace and justice wanted to hold a rally on the great lawn during the republican national convention. the city denied an application for a permit, stating that such a mass gathering would be harmful to the grass and the damage would make it harder to collect private donations to maintain the park.[510] a judge of the new york supreme court's new york county branch upheld the refusal.[511] during the 2000s and 2010s, new supertall skyscrapers were constructed along the southern end of central park, in a corridor commonly known as billionaires' row. according to a municipal art society report, such buildings cast long shadows over the southern end of the park.[512][513] a 2016 analysis by the new york times found that some of the tallest and skinniest skyscrapers, such as one57, central park tower, and 220 central park south, would cast shadows that can be as much as 1 mile (1.6 km) long during the winter, covering up to a third of the park's length.[514] in 2018, the new york city council proposed a task force to study the effects of skyscrapers near city parks.[515] central park's size and cultural position has served as a model for many urban parks.[516][517] olmsted believed landscape design was a way to improve the feeling of community and had intended the park as the antithesis of the stresses of the city's daily life.[518] the greensward plan, radical at the time of its construction, led to widespread changes in park designs and urban planning; in particular, parks were designed to incorporate landscapes whose elements were related to each other.[519][520] as a new york city icon, central park is one of the most filmed locations in the world.[521][522] a december 2017 report found that 231 movies had used it for on location shoots, more than the 160 movies that had filmed in greenwich village or the 99 movies that had filmed in times square.[521][523] some of the movies filmed at central park, such as the 1993 film the age of innocence, reflect ideals of the past. other films, including the fisher king (1991), marathon man (1976), the out of towners (1970), and home alone 2: lost in new york (1992), use the park for dramatic conflict scenes. central park has been used in romance films such as maid in manhattan (2002), 13 going on 30 (2004) or hitch (2005), and fantasy live action/animated films such as enchanted (2007).[524] in 2009, an estimated 4,000 days of film shoots were hosted, or an average of more than ten film shoots per day, accounting for $135.5 million in city revenue.[23] because of its cultural and historical significance, central park has been a national historic landmark since 1962,[525][526][527] and a new york city scenic landmark since 1974.[2] it was placed on unesco's list of tentative world heritage sites in 2017.[528] the value of the surrounding land started rising significantly in the mid 1860s during the park's construction.[279][529] the completion of central park immediately increased the surrounding area's real estate prices, in some cases by up to 700 percent between 1858 and 1870.[530][531] it also resulted in the creation of the zoning plan in upper manhattan.[532] upscale districts grew on both sides of central park following its completion.[533] on the upper east side, a portion of fifth avenue abutting lower central park became known as "millionaires' row" by the 1890s, due to the concentration of wealthy families in the area.[533][534] the upper west side took longer to develop, but row houses and luxury apartment buildings came to predominate in the neighborhood; some of these buildings are included in the central park west historic district.[533][535] though most of the city's rich formerly lived in mansions, they moved into apartments close to central park during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[536] during the late 20th century, until central park's restoration in the 1990s, proximity to the park did not have a significant positive effect on real estate values. following central park's restoration, some of the city's most expensive properties have been sold or rented near the park.[508] the value of the land in central park was estimated to be about $528.8 billion in december 2005, though this was based on the park's impact on the average value of nearby land.[537] in the modern day, it is estimated that central park has resulted in billions of dollars in economic impact. a 2009 study found that the city received annual tax revenue of more than $656 million, visitors spent more than $395 million due to the park, in park businesses such as concessions generated $135.5 million, and the 4,000 hours of annual film shoots and other photography generated $135.6 million of economic output.[23] in 2013, about 550,000 people lived within a ten minute walk (about 0.5 miles or 0.80 kilometers) of the park's boundaries, and 1.15 million more people could get to the park within a half hour subway ride.[508]

there are three moments in the yearlong catastrophe of the covid 19 pandemic when events might have turned out differently. the first occurred on january 3, 2020, when robert redfield, the director of the centers for disease control and prevention, spoke with george fu gao, the head of the chinese center for disease control and prevention, which was modelled on the american institution. redfield had just received a report about an unexplained respiratory virus emerging in the city of wuhan. the field of public health had long been haunted by the prospect of a widespread respiratory illness outbreak like the 1918 influenza pandemic, so redfield was concerned. gao, when pressed, assured him that there was no evidence of human to human transmission. at the time, the theory was that each case had arisen from animals in a “wet” market where exotic game was sold. when redfield learned that, among twenty seven reported cases, there were several family clusters, he observed that it was unlikely that each person had been infected, simultaneously, by a caged civet cat or a raccoon dog. he offered to send a c.d.c. team to wuhan to investigate, but gao said that he wasn’t authorized to accept such assistance. redfield made a formal request to the chinese government and assembled two dozen specialists, but no invitation arrived. a few days later, in another conversation with redfield, gao started to cry and said, “i think we’re too late.” lawrence wright on how the pandemic response went wrong. perhaps gao had just been made aware that the virus had been circulating in china at least since november. certainly, redfield didn’t know that the virus was already present in california, oregon, and washington, and would be spreading in massachusetts, wisconsin, iowa, connecticut, michigan, and rhode island within the next two weeks well before america’s first official case was detected. redfield is convinced that, had c.d.c. specialists visited china in early january, they would have learned exactly what the world was facing. the new pathogen was a coronavirus, and as such it was thought to be only modestly contagious, like its cousin the sars virus. this assumption was wrong. the virus in wuhan turned out to be far more infectious, and it spread largely by asymptomatic transmission. “that whole idea that you were going to diagnose cases based on symptoms, isolate them, and contact trace around them was not going to work,” redfield told me recently. “you’re going to be missing fifty per cent of the cases. we didn’t appreciate that until late february.” the first mistake had been made, and the second was soon to happen. matthew pottinger was getting nervous. he is one of the few survivors of donald trump’s white house, perhaps because he is hard to categorize. fluent in mandarin, he spent seven years in china, reporting for reuters and the wall street journal. he left journalism at the age of thirty two and joined the marines, a decision that confounded everyone who knew him. in afghanistan, he co wrote an influential paper with lieutenant general michael flynn on improving military intelligence. when trump named flynn his national security adviser, flynn chose pottinger as the asia director. scandal removed flynn from his job almost overnight, but pottinger stayed, serving five subsequent national security chiefs. in september, 2019, trump appointed him deputy national security adviser. in a very noisy administration, he had quietly become one of the most influential people shaping american foreign policy. at the journal, pottinger had covered the 2003 sars outbreak. the chinese hid the news, and, when rumors arose, authorities minimized the severity of the disease, though the fatality rate was approximately ten per cent. authorities at the world health organization were eventually allowed to visit beijing hospitals, but infected patients were reportedly loaded into ambulances or checked into hotels until the inspectors left the country. by then, sars was spreading to hong kong, hanoi, singapore, taiwan, manila, ulaanbaatar, toronto, and san francisco. it ultimately reached some thirty countries. because of heroic efforts on the part of public health officials and because sars spread slowly it was contained eight months after it emerged. the national security council addresses global developments and offers the president options for responding. last winter, pottinger was struck by the disparity between official accounts of the novel coronavirus in china, which scarcely mentioned the disease, and chinese social media, which was aflame with rumors and anecdotes. someone posted a photograph of a sign outside a wuhan hospital saying that the e.r. was closed, because staff were infected. another report said that crematoriums were overwhelmed. on january 14th, the n.s.c. convened an interagency meeting to discuss the virus. early that morning, the w.h.o. relying on china’s assurances tweeted that there was no evidence of human to human transmission. the n.s.c. recommended that screeners take the temperatures of any passengers arriving from wuhan. the next day, president trump signed the first phase of a u.s. china trade deal, declaring, “together, we are righting the wrongs of the past and delivering a future of economic justice and security for american workers, farmers, and families.” he called china’s president, xi jinping, “a very, very good friend.” on january 20th, the first case was identified in the u.s. on a voice of america broadcast, dr. anthony fauci, the head of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases, said, “this is a thirty five year old young man who works here in the united states, who visited wuhan.” trump, who was at the world economic forum, in davos, switzerland, dismissed the threat, saying, “it’s one person coming in from china. it’s going to be just fine.” on january 23, 2020, all the members of the u.s. senate gathered for the second day of opening arguments in president trump’s impeachment trial. it was an empty exercise with a foreordained result. mitch mcconnell, the majority leader, had already said that he would steamroll democratic attempts to introduce witnesses or new evidence. “we have the votes,” he decreed. the trial posed difficulties for the four democratic senators still running for president. as soon as the proceedings recessed, on friday evenings, the candidates raced off to campaign for the weekend. one of them, amy klobuchar, of minnesota, recalled, “i was doing planetariums in small towns at midnight.” then it was back to washington, to listen to an argument that one side would clearly win. in the midst of this deadened theatre, mcconnell announced, “in the morning, there will be a coronavirus briefing for all members at ten thirty.” this was the first mention of covid in congress. the briefing took place on january 24th, in the hearing room of the health, education, labor, and pensions committee, which lamar alexander, republican of tennessee, chaired. patty murray is the ranking democratic member. a former preschool teacher, she has been a senator for twenty seven years. her father managed a five and dime until he developed multiple sclerosis and was unable to work. murray was fifteen. the family went on welfare. she knows how illness can upend people economically, and how government can help. a few days earlier, she had heard about the first confirmed covid case in the u.s. the man had travelled from wuhan to washington, her state. murray contacted local public health officials, who seemed to be doing everything right: the man was hospitalized, and health officials were tracing a few possible contacts. suddenly, they were tracking dozens of people. murray said to herself, “wow, this is kinda scary. and this is in my back yard.” but in the outbreak’s early days, when decisiveness mattered most, few other politicians were paying attention. it had been a century since the previous great pandemic, which found its way from the trenches of the first world war to tropical jungles and eskimo villages. back then, scientists scarcely knew what a virus was. in the twenty first century, infectious disease seemed like a nuisance, not like a mortal threat. this lack of concern was reflected in the diminished budgets given to institutions that once had led the world in countering disease and keeping americans healthy. hospitals closed; stockpiles of emergency equipment weren’t replenished. the spectre of an unknown virus arising in china gave certain public health officials nightmares, but it wasn’t on the agenda of most american policymakers. about twenty senators showed up to hear anthony fauci and robert redfield speak at an hour long briefing. the health authorities were reassuring. redfield said, “we are prepared for this.” that day, pottinger convened forty two people, including n.s.c. staffers and cabinet level officials, for a meeting. china had just announced a lockdown of wuhan, a city of eleven million, which could mean only that sustained human to human transmission was occurring. indeed, pottinger’s staff reported that another city, huanggang, was also locked down. the previous day, the state department had heightened its travel advisory for passengers to the wuhan region, and the meeting’s attendees debated how to implement another precaution: sending all passengers coming from wuhan to five u.s. airports, where they could be given a health screening before entry. the next day, pottinger attended a chinese new year party on capitol hill. old diplomatic hands, émigrés, and chinese dissidents relayed stories about the outbreak from friends and family members. people were frightened. it sounded like sars all over again. pottinger went home and dug up files from his reporting days, looking for phone numbers of former sources, including chinese doctors. he then called his brother, paul, an infectious disease doctor in seattle. paul had been reading about the new virus on listservs, but had assumed that, like sars, it would be “a flash in the pan.” if flights from china were halted, matt asked, could america have more time to prepare? paul was hesitant. like most public health practitioners, he held that travel bans often have unintended consequences. they stigmatize countries contending with contagion. doctors and medical equipment must be able to move around. and, by the time restrictions are put in place, the disease has usually infiltrated the border anyway, making the whole exercise pointless. but matt spoke with resolve. little was known about the virus except for the fact that it was spreading like wildfire, embers flying from city to city. paul told matt to do whatever he could to slow the virus’s advance, giving the u.s. a chance to establish testing and contact tracing protocols, which could keep the outbreak under control. otherwise, the year ahead might be calamitous. no one realized how widely the disease had already seeded itself. fauci told a radio interviewer that covid wasn’t something americans needed to “be worried or frightened by,” but he added that it was “an evolving situation.” in october, 2019, the first global health security index appeared, a sober report of a world largely unprepared to deal with a pandemic. “unfortunately, political will for accelerating health security is caught in a perpetual cycle of panic and neglect,” the authors observed. “no country is fully prepared.” yet one country stood above all others in terms of readiness: the united states. during the transition to the trump administration, the obama white house handed off a sixty nine page document called the playbook for early response to high consequence emerging infectious disease threats and biological incidents. a meticulous guide for combatting a “pathogen of pandemic potential,” it contains a directory of government resources to consult the moment things start going haywire. among the most dangerous pathogens are the respiratory viruses, including orthopoxviruses (such as smallpox), novel influenzas, and coronaviruses. with domestic outbreaks, the playbook specifies that, “while states hold significant power and responsibility related to public health response outside of a declared public health emergency, the american public will look to the u.s. government for action.” the playbook outlines the conditions under which various federal agencies should become involved. questions about the severity and the contagiousness of a disease should be directed to the department of health and human services, the federal emergency management agency, and the environmental protection agency. how robust is contact tracing? is clinical care in the region scalable if cases explode? there are many such questions, with decisions proposed and agencies assigned. appendices describe such entities as the pentagon’s military aeromedical evacuation team, which can be assembled to transport patients. health and human services can call upon a disaster mortuary operational response team, which includes medical examiners, pathologists, and dental assistants. the trump administration jettisoned the obama playbook. in 2019, h.h.s. conducted crimson contagion, a simulation examining the government’s ability to contain a pandemic. among the participants were the pentagon, the n.s.c., hospitals, local and regional health care departments, the american red cross, and twelve state governments. the scenario envisioned an international group of tourists visiting china who become infected with a novel influenza and spread it worldwide. there’s no vaccine; antiviral drugs are ineffective. the crimson contagion exercise inspired little confidence that the government was prepared to handle such a crisis. federal agencies couldn’t tell who was in charge; states grew frustrated in their attempts to secure enough resources. during the simulation, some cities defied a c.d.c. recommendation to close schools. government policies, the report concluded, were inadequate and “often in conflict.” the public health emergency fund and the strategic national stockpile were dangerously depleted; n95 masks and other medical essentials were in short supply, and domestic manufacturing capacity was insufficient. congress was briefed on the findings but they were never made public. by the time covid arrived, no meaningful changes had been made to address these shortcomings. “i just love infectious diseases,” john brooks, the chief medical officer of the covid response team at the c.d.c., admitted to me. “i know diseases are terrible they kill people. but something about them just grabs me.” each generation has its own struggle with disease. in 1939, brooks’s mother, joan bertrand brooks, developed polio. her legs were covered with surgical scars, and her right leg was noticeably shorter than her left. “she spoke about that experience often how she was teased, stigmatized, or blatantly discriminated against,” brooks recalled. for brooks, who is gay, the disease of his generation was h.i.v./aids. he grew up near the dupont circle neighborhood of washington, d.c., which had a large gay population, and watched men he knew disappear: “guys would get thin and develop lesions and then be gone. it was scary.” science offered no solution, and that was on brooks’s mind when he decided to become a doctor. the day he was accepted at harvard medical school, he and his mother went to lunch to celebrate. “afterward, we dropped into a ten dollar palm reader, who said she saw me marrying a tall swedish woman and owning a jet with which i flew around the world with our three children,” he told me. “we had a good laugh. i should have asked for a refund.” in 2015, brooks became the chief medical officer of the h.i.v./aids division at the c.d.c. every h.i.v. researcher has been humbled by the various manifestations of this disease. “at every turn, there was something different,” brooks said. “all these opportunistic infections show up. what in the world is this all about? very cool.” the experience of studying h.i.v. helped prepare him for the myriad tricks that covid would present. the c.d.c. was founded in 1946, as the communicable disease center. atlanta was chosen as its home because the city was in the heart of what was called “the malaria zone.” five years later, america was declared malaria free. the c.d.c.’s mission expanded to attack other diseases: typhus, polio, rabies. in 1981, the organization, by then renamed the centers for disease control, reported the first known cases of aids, in los angeles. until this year, the c.d.c. maintained a reputation as the gold standard for public health, operating above politics and proving repeatedly the value of enlightened government and the necessity of science for the furthering of civilization. during the twentieth century, the life span of americans increased by thirty years, largely because of advances in public health, especially vaccination. the c.d.c. campus now resembles a midsize college, with more buildings under construction, including a high containment facility for the world’s most dangerous diseases. lab animals mice, ferrets, monkeys inhabit cages inside biosafety level 4 chambers. humans move around them like deep sea divers in inflated suits, tethered to an overhead airflow system. the emergency operations center is a large, bright room, with serried rows of wooden desks facing a wall of video screens. the place exudes a mixture of urgency and professional calm. on one side of the room, operators triage incoming phone calls. in 2014, during the ebola crisis, brooks received a call from clay jenkins, a county judge in dallas. a liberian citizen visiting the city, thomas eric duncan, had contracted the disease. jenkins wanted advice about how to safely approach duncan’s fiancée and her family members. on a monitor, brooks could see the fiancée’s apartment complex, shot from above by cameras on helicopters. brooks told jenkins that he could safely enter the apartment as long as the family had no symptoms: it would be an important public gesture for him to choose compassion over fear. brooks watched footage of jenkins escorting the family out of the complex. (thomas duncan eventually died; two nurses who had cared for him were infected but survived.) brooks was working on the covid response team with greg armstrong, a fellow epidemiologist. armstrong oversaw the advanced molecular detection program, which is part of the c.d.c.’s center for emerging and zoonotic infectious diseases. (zoonotic diseases come from animals, as coronaviruses typically do.) humanity’s encroachment into formerly wild regions, coupled with climate change, which has forced animals out of traditional habitats, has engendered many new diseases in humans, including ebola and zika. at first, sars cov 2 as the new virus was being called presented itself as a less mortal coronavirus, like the common cold, spreading rapidly and sometimes asymptomatically. in fact, sars cov 2 was more like polio. most polio infections are asymptomatic or very mild fever and headaches. but some are deadly. the polio cases that doctors actually see are about one in every two hundred infections. stealth transmission is why polio has been so hard to eradicate. armstrong was in salt lake city, conducting a training session, when he noticed an article on the web site of the new england journal of medicine: “early transmission dynamics in wuhan, china, of novel coronavirus infected pneumonia.” the article was one of the first to describe the virus’s spread among humans, a development that didn’t surprise armstrong: “anybody with any epidemiology experience could tell you it was human to human transmission.” then he noticed table 1, “characteristics of patients,” which noted the original source of their infection. of the chinese known to have contracted the virus before january 1st, twenty six per cent had no exposure either to the wuhan wet market or to people with apparent respiratory symptoms. in subsequent weeks, the number of people with no obvious source of infection surpassed seventy per cent. armstrong realized that, unlike with sars or mers other coronavirus diseases many infections of sars cov 2 were probably asymptomatic or mild. contact tracing, isolation, and quarantine would likely not be enough. these details were buried in table 1. other reports began to emerge about possible asymptomatic spread. although sars cov 2 was genetically related to the sars and mers viruses, it was apparently unlike them in two key ways: people could be contagious before developing symptoms, and some infected people would never manifest illness. in late february, university of texas scientists, led by lauren ancel meyers, reported that it could have a “negative serial interval,” meaning that some infected people showed symptoms before the person who had given it to them. the c.d.c.’s early guidance documents didn’t mention that possibility, because the evidence of asymptomatic spread was deemed insufficient. “in the beginning, for every mathematical analysis that indicated a shorter serial interval than incubation period, others reported no difference,” brooks said. “when the science changed, we changed. and our recommendations changed, too.” but, by that time, the c.d.c. had been muzzled by the trump administration. “there are three things this virus is doing that blow me away,” brooks told me. “the first is that it directly infects the endothelial cells that line our blood vessels. i’m not aware of any other human respiratory viruses that do this. this causes a lot of havoc.” endothelial cells normally help protect the body from infection. when sars cov 2 invades them, their powerful chemical contents get dumped into the bloodstream, resulting in inflammation elsewhere in the body. the rupture of individual endothelial cells coarsens the lining in the blood vessels, creating breaks and rough spots that cause turbulent blood flow. the second surprise was hypercoagulability patients had a pronounced tendency to develop blood clots. this reminded brooks of michael crichton’s 1969 novel, “the andromeda strain,” in which a pathogen causes instant clotting, striking down victims in mid stride. “this is different,” brooks said. “you’re getting these things called pulmonary embolisms, which are nasty. a clot forms it travels to the lung, damaging the tissues, blocking blood flow, and creating pressures that can lead to heart problems.” more puzzling was evidence that clots sometimes formed in the lungs, leading to acute respiratory distress. brooks referred to an early report documenting autopsies of victims. nearly all had pulmonary thromboses; until the autopsy, nobody had suspected that the clots were even present, let alone the probable cause of death. “the last one is this hyperimmune response,” brooks said. most infectious diseases kill people by triggering an excessive immune system response; covid, like pneumonia, can unleash white blood cells that flood the lungs with fluid, putting the patient at risk of drowning. but covid is unusual in the variety of ways that it causes the body to malfunction. some patients require kidney dialysis or suffer liver damage. the disease can affect the brain and other parts of the nervous system, causing delirium, strokes, and lasting nerve damage. covid could also do strange things to the heart. hospitals began admitting patients with symptoms of heart attack chest pains, trouble breathing and preparing emergency coronary catheterizations. “but their coronary vessels are clean,” brooks said. “there’s no blockage.” instead, an immune reaction had inflamed the heart muscle, a condition called myocarditis. “there’s not a lot you can do but hope they get through it.” a german study of a hundred recovered covid patients with the average age of forty nine found that twenty two had lasting cardiac problems, including scarring of the heart muscle. even after brooks thought that covid had no more tricks to play, another aftereffect confounded him: “you get over the illness, you’re feeling better, and it comes back to bite you again.” in adults, it might just be a rash. but some children develop a multi organ inflammatory syndrome. brooks said, “they have conjunctivitis, their eyes get real red, they have abdominal pain, and then they can go on to experience cardiovascular collapse.” when i was around six, i woke up one morning and couldn’t get out of bed: i was paralyzed from the waist down. it was during the polio era, in the early fifties, before there was a cure. i remember the alarm in my mother’s eyes. our family doctor made a house call. he sat on the edge of the bed, and took my temperature and pulse; there was little else he could do. the terror of polio haunted children and parents everywhere. i was lucky. after a day or so, i could move my legs again. i was never certain what had caused my brief paralysis, but the memory was searing. soon after the polio vaccine, invented by jonas salk, became available, in 1955, i was inoculated, along with millions of other children. so i had a personal interest when i entered building 40 of the main campus of the national institutes of health, in bethesda, maryland, which houses the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases. dr. barney s. graham, the deputy director of the vaccine research center and the chief of the viral pathogenesis laboratory and translational science core, works on the second floor. he studies how viruses cause disease, and he designs vaccines. the first thing you notice about graham is that there’s a lot of him: he’s six feet five, with a gray goatee and a laconic manner. graham’s boss at niaid, anthony fauci, told me, “he understands vaccinology better than anybody i know.” bookshelves in graham’s office hold colorful 3 d printouts of viruses that he has worked with, including ebola, zika, and influenza. while i was researching “the end of october,” a novel that i published earlier this year, about a deadly pandemic, graham helped me design a fictional virus, and then concocted a vaccine for it. as we collaborated, i came to understand that researchers like graham are essentially puzzle solvers. this past year, he solved one of the most consequential puzzles in modern science. he is the chief architect of the first covid vaccines authorized for emergency use. manufactured by moderna and pfizer, they differ only in their delivery systems. on graham’s wall is a map of kansas, where he grew up. his father was a dentist and his mother was a teacher. for part of his childhood, they lived on a hog farm. barney and his brother did much of the farming. working with the animals, he learned a lot about veterinary medicine. at rice university, he majored in biology. he earned a medical degree at the university of kansas, where he met his wife, cynthia turner graham, a psychiatrist. in 1978, on an infectious disease rotation in medical school, he spent time at the n.i.h., where he first encountered fauci. “cynthia noticed when i came back how excited i was,” graham recalled. “people were willing to battle each other’s ideas. she thought i would end up here.” first, he and cynthia had to complete residencies. they wanted to be in the same town, a problem many professional couples face, but additionally complicated in their case because cynthia is black. she suggested nashville: he could apply to vanderbilt school of medicine and she to meharry medical college, a historically black institution. tennessee had only recently repealed a ban on interracial marriage. driving back to kansas from maryland on christmas eve, graham stopped in at vanderbilt. to his surprise, the director of the residency program, thomas brittingham, was in his office and willing to meet with him immediately. when the interview was over, graham told brittingham, “i know this is the south. i’m going to marry a black woman, and if that makes a difference i can’t come here.” brittingham said, “close the door.” he welcomed graham on the spot. cynthia was accepted at meharry, and so they moved to nashville. by 1982, graham had become the chief resident at nashville general hospital. that year, he saw a patient suffering from five simultaneous infections, including cryptococcal meningitis and herpes simplex. it was a mystery: most infections are solitary events. the medical staff was terrified. graham realized that he was treating tennessee’s first aids patient. “we kept him alive for three weeks,” he said. millions of lives would be changed, and so many ended, by this remorseless, elusive disease. immunology, then a fledgling field, was transformed by the battle. “it took us a couple years just to figure out that h.i.v. was a virus,” graham said. he started running vaccine trials. “it was not till the mid nineties that we had decent treatments. there were some really hard years. almost everyone died.” in 2000, the n.i.h. recruited graham to create a vaccine evaluation clinic. he insisted on keeping a research lab. with space for two dozen scientists, his lab focusses on vaccines for three categories of respiratory viruses: influenza, coronaviruses, and a highly contagious virus called respiratory syncytial virus (rsv), which ended up playing a key role in the development of a covid vaccine. rsv causes wheezing pneumonia in children, and sends more kids under five years old to the hospital than any other disease. one of the last childhood infectious diseases without a vaccine, rsv also kills about as many of the elderly as seasonal influenza. it’s wildly infectious. in order to stop its spread in a hospital pediatric ward, staff must wear gloves, masks, and goggles; if any of these items is omitted, rsv will surge. like covid, it is dispersed through particle droplets and contaminated surfaces. in the nineteen sixties, a clinical trial of a potential rsv vaccine made children sicker and led to two deaths a syndrome called vaccine enhanced disease. graham spent much of two decades trying to solve the riddle of what causes rsv, but the technology he needed was still being developed. in 2008, he had a stroke of luck. jason mclellan, a postdoc studying h.i.v., had been squeezed out of a structural biology lab upstairs. h.i.v. has proved invulnerable to a vaccine solution, despite extraordinary technological advances and elegant new theories for designing one. “i thought, let’s try things out on a more tractable virus,” mclellan recalled. “barney thought rsv would be perfect for a structure based vaccine.” a vaccine trains the immune system to recognize a virus in order to counter it. using imaging technology, structural biologists can intuit the contours of a virus and its proteins, then reproduce those structures to make more effective vaccines. mclellan said of his field, “from the structure, we can determine function it’s similar to how seeing a car, with four wheels and doors, implies something about its function to transport people.” the surface of an rsv particle features a protein, designated f. on the top of the protein, a spot called an epitope serves as a landing pad for antibodies, allowing the virus to be neutralized. but something extraordinary happens when the virus invades a cell. the f protein swells like an erection, burying the epitope and effectively hiding it from antibodies. somehow, mclellan had to keep the f protein from getting an erection. until recently, one of the main imaging tools used by vaccinologists, the cryogenic electron microscope, wasn’t powerful enough to visualize viral proteins, which are incredibly tiny. “the whole field was referred to as blobology,” mclellan said. as a work around, he developed expertise in x ray crystallography. with this method, a virus, or even just a protein on a virus, is crystallized, then hit with an x ray beam that creates a scatter pattern, like a shotgun blast; the structure of the crystallized object can be determined from the distribution of electrons. mclellan showed me an “atomistic interpretation” of the f protein on the rsv virus the visualization looked like a pile of cheetos. it required a leap of imagination, but inside that murky world graham and mclellan and their team manipulated the f protein, essentially by cloning it and inserting mutations that kept it strapped down. mclellan said, “there’s a lot of art to it.” in 2013, graham and mclellan published “structure based design of a fusion glycoprotein vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus,” in science, demonstrating how they had stabilized the f protein in order to use it as an antigen the part of a vaccine that sparks an immune response. antibodies could now attack the f protein, vanquishing the virus. graham and mclellan calculated that their vaccine could be given to a pregnant woman and provide enough antibodies to her baby to last for its first six months the critical period. the paper opened a new front in the war against infectious disease. in a subsequent paper in science, the team declared that it had established “clinical proof of concept for structure based vaccine design,” portending “an era of precision vaccinology.” the rsv vaccine is now in phase iii human trials. in 2012, the mers coronavirus emerged in saudi arabia. it was extremely dangerous to work with: a third of infected people died. ominously, it was the second novel coronavirus in ten years. coronaviruses have been infecting humans for as long as eight centuries, but before sars and mers they caused only the common cold. it’s possible that, in the distant past, cold viruses were as deadly as covid, and that humans developed resistance over time. like rsv, coronaviruses have a protein that elongates when invading a cell. “it looks like a spike, so we just call it spike,” graham said. spike was large, flexible, and encased in sugars, which made it difficult to crystallize, so x ray crystallography wasn’t an option. fortunately, around 2013, what mclellan calls a “resolution revolution” in cryogenic electron microscopy allowed scientists to visualize microbes down to one ten billionth of a metre. finally, vaccinologists could truly see what they were doing. using these high powered lenses, graham and mclellan modified the mers spike protein, creating a vaccine. it worked well in mice. they were on the way to making a version for humans, but, after mers had killed hundreds of people, it petered out as an immediate threat to humans and the research funding petered out, too. graham was dismayed, realizing that such a reaction was shortsighted, but he knew that his energies hadn’t been wasted. about two dozen virus families are known to infect humans, and the weapon that graham’s lab had developed to conquer rsv and mers might be transferrable to many of them. what was the best way to deliver a modified protein? graham knew that moderna, a biotech startup in cambridge, massachusetts, had encoded a modified protein on strips of genetic material known as messenger rna. the company had never brought a vaccine to market, concentrating instead on providing treatments for rare disorders that aren’t profitable enough to interest big pharma. but moderna’s messenger rna platform was potent. in mice, graham had proved the effectiveness of a structure based vaccine for mers and also for nipah, a particularly fatal virus. in 2017, graham arranged a demonstration project for pandemic preparedness, with mers and nipah serving as prototypes for a human vaccine using moderna’s messenger rna platform. almost three years later, as he was preparing to begin human trials for the nipah vaccine, he heard the news from wuhan. graham called mclellan, who happened to be in park city, utah, getting snowboard boots heat molded to his feet. mclellan had become a star in structural biology, and was recruited to the university of texas at austin, where he had access to cryogenic electron microscopes. it took someone who knew graham well to detect the urgency in his voice. he suspected that china’s cases of atypical pneumonia were caused by a new coronavirus, and he was trying to obtain the genomic sequence. it was a chance to test their concept in a real world situation. would mclellan and his team like to get “back in the saddle” and help him create a vaccine? “of course,” mclellan said. “we got the sequences friday night, the tenth of january,” graham told me. they had been posted online by the chinese. “we woke up on the eleventh and started designing proteins.” nine days later, the coronavirus officially arrived in america. within a day after graham and mclellan downloaded the sequence for sars cov 2, they had designed the modified proteins. the key accelerating factor was that they already knew how to alter the spike proteins of other coronaviruses. on january 13th, they turned their scheme over to moderna, for manufacturing. six weeks later, moderna began shipping vials of vaccine for clinical trials. the development process was “an all time record,” graham told me. typically, it takes years, if not decades, to go from formulating a vaccine to making a product ready to be tested: the process privileges safety and cost over speed. graham had to make several crucial decisions while designing the vaccine, including where to start encoding the spike protein sequence on the messenger rna. making bad choices could render the vaccine less effective or worthless. he solicited advice from colleagues. everyone said that the final decisions were up to him nobody had more experience in designing vaccines. he made his choices. then, after moderna had already begun the manufacturing process, the company sent back some preliminary data that made him fear he’d botched the job. graham panicked. given his usual composure, cynthia, his wife, was alarmed. “it was a crisis of confidence that i just never see in him,” she said. so much depended on the prompt development of a safe and effective vaccine. graham’s lab was off to a fast start. if his vaccine worked, millions of lives might be spared. if it failed or was delayed, it would be graham’s fault. after the vaccine was tested in animals, it became clear that graham’s design choices had been sound. the first human trial began on march 16th. a week later, moderna began scaling up production to a million doses per month. since 2016, dr. rick bright has run the biomedical advanced research and development authority. a division of h.h.s., the authority is responsible for medical countermeasures in the event of bioterrorism or a pandemic. according to a whistle blower complaint, on january 22nd bright received an e mail from mike bowen, an executive at the texas based firm prestige ameritech, the country’s largest maker of surgical masks. bowen wrote that he had four “like new” n95 manufacturing lines, which weren’t in use. he added, “reactivating these machines would be very difficult and very expensive but could be achieved in a dire situation and with government help.” in another message, bowen wrote, “we are the last major domestic mask company. . . . my phones are ringing now, so i don’t ‘need’ government business. i’m just letting you know that i can help you preserve our infrastructure if things ever get really bad. i’m a patriot first, businessman second.” bright had already been worried about the likely shortage of personal protective equipment in the strategic national stockpile. he also felt that not enough was being done to develop diagnostics for the virus from wuhan. on january 23rd, at an h.h.s. leadership meeting with secretary alex azar, he warned that the “virus might already be here we just don’t have the tests to know.” many trump administration officials seemed determined to ignore scientists who shared bad news. on january 25th, bowen wrote bright again, saying that his company was getting “lots of requests from china and hong kong” for masks a stunning piece of intelligence. about half the masks used in the u.s. come from china; if that supply stopped, bowen said, american hospitals would run out. bright continued pushing for immediate action on masks, but he found h.h.s. to be unresponsive. on january 27th, bowen wrote, “i think we’re in deep shit. the world.” the same day, at the white house, matt pottinger convened an interagency meeting of cabinet officers and deputies. attendees fell into four camps. there was the public health establishment redfield, fauci, azar data driven people who, at the moment, had no data. another group the acting white house chief of staff, mick mulvaney, along with officials from the office of management and budget and the transportation department was preoccupied with the economic damage that would result if drastic steps were taken. a state department faction was concerned mainly with logistical issues, such as extracting americans from wuhan. finally, there was pottinger, who saw the virus not just as a medical and economic challenge but also as a national security threat. he wanted dramatic action now. for three weeks, the u.s. had been trying unsuccessfully to send medical experts to china. the public health contingent didn’t want to make decisions about quarantines or travel bans without definitive intelligence, but the chinese wouldn’t supply it. when pottinger presented a proposal to curtail travel from china, the economic advisers derided it as overkill. travel bans upended trade a serious consideration with china, which, in addition to p.p.e., manufactured much of the vital medicine that the u.s. relied on. predictably, the public health representatives were resistant, too: travel bans slowed down emergency assistance, and viruses found ways to propagate no matter what. moreover, at least fourteen thousand passengers from china were arriving in the u.s. every day: there was no way to quarantine them all. these arguments would join other public health verities that were eventually overturned by the pandemic. countries that imposed travel bans with strict quarantines, such as vietnam and new zealand, kept the contagion at a manageable level. the state department’s evacuation of americans, particularly diplomatic staff in wuhan, outraged the chinese; tedros adhanom ghebreyesus, the director general of the w.h.o., said that the u.s. was overreacting. in part to placate the chinese, the 747s that were sent to collect americans were filled with eighteen tons of p.p.e., including masks, gowns, and gauze. it was a decision that many came to regret especially when inferior substitutes were later sold back to the u.s., at colossal markups. the morning after the meeting, pottinger spoke to a doctor in china who was treating patients. people were getting infected and there was no way to know how and where it happened a stage of contagion called community spread. pottinger asked, “is this going to be as bad as sars?” “don’t think 2003 it’s more like 1918,” the doctor said. that flu lasted two years, and killed between forty and a hundred million people. on january 28th, the national security adviser, robert o’brien, brought pottinger into the oval office, where the president was getting his daily intelligence briefing. according to contemporaneous notes from someone present at this meeting, the briefer mentioned the virus, but didn’t present it as the top threat. o’brien warned the president, “this will be the biggest national security threat you will face.” trump asked if the outbreak posed as big a danger as sars, and the briefer responded that it wasn’t clear yet. pottinger leaped to his feet and recounted what he’d heard from his sources most shockingly, that more than half the disease’s spread was attributed to asymptomatic carriers. yet, every day, thousands of people were flying from china to the u.s. “should we shut down travel?” trump asked. “yes,” pottinger advised. pottinger left the oval office and walked to the situation room, where a newly formed coronavirus task force was meeting. people were annoyed with him. “it would be unusual for an asymptomatic person to drive the epidemic in a respiratory disorder,” fauci said. that certainly had been true of sars. he still wanted u.s. scientists to report from china, in order to get more data. redfield, of the c.d.c., considered it too early for disruptive actions. he said that there were only a handful of cases outside china, and that in the u.s. the pathogen wasn’t moving that fast. the public health contingent was united. “let the data guide us,” they advised. pottinger pointed out that the chinese continued to block such efforts: “we’re not getting data that’s dependable!” the economic advisers, meanwhile, were frantic a travel ban would kill the airline industry and shut down the global supply chain. larry kudlow, the president’s chief economic adviser, had been questioning the seriousness of the situation. he couldn’t square the apocalyptic forecasts with the stock market. “is all the money dumb?” he wondered. “everyone’s asleep at the switch? i just have a hard time believing that.” (kudlow doesn’t recall making this statement.) pottinger, sensing that he’d need backup, had brought along peter navarro, an abrasive economic adviser who had been part of the trade negotiations with china. many white house officials considered navarro to be a crackpot, but he was known to be one of the president’s favorites because he advocated tariff wars and other nationalist measures. navarro warned the group, “we have got to seal the borders now. this is a black swan event, and you’re rolling the dice with your gradualist approach.” within minutes, navarro was at odds with everyone in the room. he pointed out that the new virus was spreading faster than the seasonal flu or sars. the possible economic costs and loss of life were staggering. azar argued that a travel ban would be an overreaction. no progress was made in that meeting, but navarro was so strident that mulvaney barred him from future sessions. then data surfaced that shifted the argument. in mid january, a chicago woman returned from a trip to china. within a week, she was hospitalized with covid. on january 30th, her husband, who hadn’t been to china, tested positive. fauci, redfield, and others in the public health contingent changed their minds: human to human transmission was clearly happening in america. trump was told the news. the timing couldn’t have been worse for him. the bitter trade war he had initiated with china had reached a tentative pause. since then, he had been praising xi jinping’s handling of the contagion, despite evidence of a coverup. a travel ban would reopen wounds. nevertheless, trump agreed to announce one the next day. it was a bold gesture, but incomplete. the administration blocked non americans coming from china, but u.s. citizens, residents, and their family members were free to enter. a two week quarantine was imposed on travellers coming from the wuhan region, but, unlike taiwan, australia, hong kong, and new zealand, which rigidly enforced quarantines, the u.s. did little to enforce its rules, and the leaks soon became apparent. in 1989, dr. howard markel was in graduate school at johns hopkins, specializing in both pediatrics and the history of medicine. he had just lost his wife to cancer, a month after their first anniversary. markel began volunteering at a local aids clinic. he found that helping men his own age who were facing their mortality, or their partner’s, was immensely consoling “the most spiritually uplifting work i did in my entire clinical career.” markel’s patients often asked him, “doc, do you think i’ll be quarantined because i have h.i.v.?” he’d reply that it wasn’t appropriate for the disease. but, realizing that these men feared being shut away, like victims of leprosy, he began studying “the uses and misuses of quarantine.” his first book was about two epidemics in new york city in 1892, one of typhus and one of cholera, in which jewish immigrants were blamed for the outbreak and many were sent to quarantine islands. in the early two thousands, markel studied “escape” communities that had essentially closed their doors during the 1918 flu pandemic among them gunnison, colorado, and a school for the blind in pittsburgh. all had survived the contagion virtually unscathed. in 2006, markel continued his work on the 1918 flu with martin cetron, who now directs the division of global migration and quarantine, at the c.d.c. for an initiative undertaken by the george w. bush administration, cetron and markel were asked to help identify the best way to manage the early waves of a pandemic that had no vaccine or treatments. they considered school closures, public gathering bans, business shutdowns traditional tools of public health. markel assembled a dozen researchers “the manhattan project for historians,” he jokes who combed through more than a hundred archives. in 1918, americans faced the same confounding choices as today. twenty five cities closed their schools once; fourteen did so twice, and kansas city three times. more than half the cities were “double humped” suffering two waves of the flu. “they raised the bar too early because the natives got restless,” markel, who is now a professor at the university of michigan, told me. “they each acted as their own control group. when the measures were on, the cases went down. when the measures were off, the cases went up.” after philadelphia permitted a liberty loans parade, there was a huge uptick in cases. st. louis, by contrast, cancelled all parades, and local officials broadcast a unified message. the city’s health commissioner published an op ed alerting citizens to the threat, immediately closing entertainment venues and banning public gatherings. st. louis’s death rate was half of philadelphia’s. by quickly imposing several nonpharmaceutical interventions, a city could dramatically lower the peak of infection on a graph, it would look more like a rainbow than like a skyscraper. markel compared each intervention to a slice of swiss cheese; one layer by itself was too riddled with holes to be effective, but multiple layers made a profound difference. “early, layered, and long” was the formula. jama published the study in 2007. the authors declared, “we found no example of a city that had a second peak of influenza while the first set of nonpharmaceutical interventions were still in effect.” in the century since 1918, technology has transformed so much, but the tools for curbing a novel pandemic haven’t changed. masks, social distancing, and frequent hand washing remain the only reliable ways to limit contagion until treatments or vaccines emerge. one night, markel and cetron were in atlanta, talking over their study, and they ordered thai food. when their dinner arrived, markel opened his styrofoam container: instead of a fluffy mound of noodles, he gazed on a level, gelatinous mass. “look,” markel said. “they’ve flattened the curve, just like we’re trying to do.” a slogan was born. by january 20th, ten days after the chinese posted the genetic sequence of sars cov 2, the c.d.c. had created a diagnostic test for it. secretary azar reportedly boasted to trump that it was “the fastest we’ve ever created a test” and promised to have more than a million tests ready within weeks. (azar denies this.) but the f.d.a. couldn’t authorize it until february 4th. and then everything really went to pieces. the testing fiasco marked the second failed opportunity america had to control the contagion. the c.d.c. decided to manufacture test kits and distribute them to public health labs, under the food and drug administration’s emergency use authorization provision. according to redfield, the c.d.c. published the blueprint for its test, and encouraged the labs to ask the f.d.a. for permission to create their own tests. but scott becker, the c.e.o. of the association of public health laboratories, told me that the labs weren’t made aware of any change in protocol. they kept waiting for the c.d.c. to supply tests, as it had done previously. at a coronavirus task force meeting, redfield announced that the c.d.c. would send a limited number of test kits to five “sentinel cities.” pottinger was stunned: why not send them everywhere? he learned that the c.d.c. makes tests, but not at scale. for that, you have to go to a company like roche or abbott molecular testing powerhouses that have the experience and the capacity to manufacture millions of tests a month. the c.d.c., pottinger realized, was “like a microbrewery they’re not anheuser busch.” at the time, azar, a former top executive at the pharmaceutical firm eli lilly, led the coronavirus task force. he agreed with pottinger that test kits needed to be broadly distributed, yet nothing changed. everyone on the task force understood the magnitude of the crisis; they attended meetings every weekday, with conference calls on weekends. north korea and iran didn’t receive such concentrated attention. yet the administration was simply not accomplishing tasks crucial to limiting the pandemic. there was a telling disparity between what azar said in private, or in the task force meetings, and what he told the president. he was hammering redfield and the c.d.c. on testing delays while assuring trump that the crisis was under control. a bottleneck of constraints imposed by the c.d.c. meant that testing was initially limited to symptomatic patients who had come from china or had been in close contact with an infected person. even health care workers who’d developed covid like symptoms while treating patients had trouble getting tests, because the c.d.c.’s capacity was so limited. pottinger kept in frequent touch with his brother, paul, the infectious disease doctor in seattle. “you getting enough test kits?” matt asked him. “we use none of the c.d.c. kits,” paul responded. “they have been way too slow in coming.” they also hadn’t been approved for screening asymptomatic patients. seattle doctors had instead devised a “homemade” diagnostic platform, but their testing capacity was “way less than demand.” paul was frantically setting up triage procedures guessing which cases were covid, and trying to sequester those patients, in order to prevent them from infecting everyone at the hospital. but there was an even bigger problem. microbiologists are acutely aware of the danger of contamination. viral dna can linger for hours or days on surfaces, adulterating testing materials. c.d.c. scientists wipe down their instruments every day. chin yih ou, a taiwanese microbiologist who retired from the c.d.c. in 2014, told me that while he was creating a test for h.i.v. in infants he refused to let janitors into his lab, mopping the floor himself. in some labs, the last person to leave at night turns on ultraviolet lamps, to kill dna that might be on the floor or a lab bench. a new pathogen is like an improvised bomb: one wrong decision can be fatal. the development of the c.d.c.’s test kits was overseen by stephen lindstrom, a microbiologist from saskatchewan, who was known for his ability to function under pressure. c.d.c. scientists began working sixteen hour days. the c.d.c.’s biotechnology core facility is in charge of producing the components used to detect such pathogens as flu, h.i.v., and sars. to save time, lindstrom asked the core facility to produce both the components and a template of a coronavirus fragment, which would be used to generate the positive control for the c.d.c. test. but, just as the kits were being boxed up to be mailed, a last minute quality control procedure found a problem that could cause the tests to fail thirty three per cent of the time. a decision was made perhaps by lindstrom, perhaps by his superiors to send the kits anyway. according to propublica, lindstrom told colleagues, “this is either going to make me or break me.” (the c.d.c. did not make lindstrom available for comment.) almost immediately, public health labs realized that something was wrong with the kits. the labs are required to do a negative control on the test for instance, using sterile water and the tests kept showing false positives. the c.d.c. test kit had three sets of primers and probes, which are tiny bits of nucleic acid that find a segment of rna in the virus and replicate it until it gets to a detectable level. two were aimed at sars cov 2 and a third would detect any coronavirus, in case the virus mutated. the third component failed. public health labs figured this out quickly. on their behalf, scott becker communicated with the c.d.c. on february 9th, seeking permission to use the test without the third component. “i got radio silence,” he told me. later, he learned that an internal c.d.c. review showed that it hadn’t passed the quality control check before the test kit was sent out. “that was a gut punch,” becker said. in 2009, matt pottinger was in kabul, in his final deployment as a marine. while walking through a tunnel connected to the u.s. embassy, he passed a young woman, and then suddenly wheeled around. her name was yen duong. she was working with the afghan government on improving its h.i.v. testing. “it was, like, seven o’clock at night,” yen remembers. “he came up to me and asked if i knew where so and so’s office was. i was thinking that i’m pretty sure so and so’s office is closed right now. it was just a ploy to talk.” matt and yen married in 2014. they have lived very different american lives. he grew up in massachusetts. his parents divorced when he was young, and he lived mostly with his mother and stepfather. his father, j. stanley pottinger, was a lawyer in the nixon administration. matt had an ear for languages, and majored in mandarin and japanese at the university of massachusetts, amherst, and that is how he found his way to china as a reporter. yen was six months old when her family left vietnam, in 1979, in a boat that her father had secretly built in his sugar factory. at sea, the duong family sixty eight in all were shot at. a storm nearly capsized the vessel. pirates robbed them. finally, the family reached a refugee camp in indonesia. six months later, the duongs were sponsored by four american churches on long island, and ended up living in the hamptons. yen’s mother cleaned houses and took in sewing, and then found a job in a bakery. her father painted houses and worked in construction. eventually, they saved enough money to send yen to boarding school. yen, drawn to science, fell in love with studying viruses. she got a doctorate in pharmacology at the university of california, davis. in 2007, she became a virologist at the c.d.c., where she developed the global standard test to measure h.i.v. incidence. none of this would have happened if the family had stayed in vietnam, if the boat had sunk in the storm, if the pirates had murdered them, or if they hadn’t been taken in by americans who wanted to help them achieve the opportunities that freedom allowed. yen pottinger, who is now a senior laboratory adviser at columbia university, told her husband what she thought had gone awry with the test kits. once the chinese had posted online the genetic sequence for the virus, yen explained to matt, primers would have been easy to design. “it’s a pretty standard task,” she told him. but sars cov 2 is an rna virus, which is “sticky” tending to cling to any surface. contamination was the only plausible explanation for the test kit’s failure. perhaps a trace amount of the virus template had found its way into the primers and probes. “contamination has felled many a great scientist,” she said, which is why a pristine lab environment is essential. on february 10th, the f.d.a. learned that ten labs working with c.d.c. test kits were reporting failures. the c.d.c. assured the f.d.a. that it could quickly fix the problem with the third component. the trump administration in particular, azar insisted on continuing with the c.d.c. test kits. although f.d.a. rules generally require that any procedure granted an emergency use authorization be used exactly as designed, the agency could have allowed public health labs to use the c.d.c. test kits without the third component, as they were pleading for. the test kits largely worked, even without it, but the f.d.a. says that it didn’t have the data from the c.d.c. to justify that simple solution. the c.d.c. wanted to stick with its original design. moreover, university scientists, hospital researchers, and commercial labs were eager to develop their own tests, but they were hampered by the bureaucratic challenge of obtaining an emergency use authorization. on february 12th, the c.d.c. estimated that it would take a week to remanufacture the third component. six days later, redfield informed azar that doing so might take until mid march. by february 21st, only seven labs in the country could verify that the test worked. redfield admitted that he had no idea when new test kits might be ready. on saturday, february 22nd, the f.d.a. sent dr. timothy stenzel, the director of the office of in vitro diagnostics and radiological health, to the c.d.c. to investigate what had gone wrong with the test. when he arrived, there was no one there to receive him, and he was turned away. the next day, he was allowed in the building but forbidden to enter any labs. it was still the weekend. stenzel made some calls. after he was finally permitted to visit the labs where the test kits were manufactured, he spotted a problem: in one lab, researchers were analyzing patient samples in the same room where testing ingredients were assembled. the tests are so sensitive that even a person walking into the room without changing her lab coat might carry viral material on her clothing that would confound the test. according to the wall street journal, an f.d.a. official described the c.d.c. lab as “filthy.” it was the lowest point in the history of a proud institution. according to an internal f.d.a. account, c.d.c. staff “indicated to dr. stenzel that dr. stephen lindstrom who oversaw a different lab in the manufacturing process directed them to allow positive and negative control materials to occupy the same physical space of the lab, even though this is a violation of their written protocols.” the clear remedy was to hand over part of the test’s manufacture to two outside contractors. within a week, tens of thousands of tests were available. but america never made up for the lost february. i recently asked redfield, a round faced man with a white amish style beard, how the contamination had occurred and if anyone had been held accountable for the corrupted kits. he replied, vaguely, “one of the newer individuals hadn’t followed protocol.” it also could have been a design flaw that mangled results. both mistakes might have happened, he conceded. “i wasn’t happy when we did our own internal review,” he said, and acknowledged that the c.d.c. shouldn’t have mass produced the test kits: “we’re not a manufacturing facility.” he insisted, “at no moment in time was a covid test not available to public health labs. you just had to send it to c.d.c.” but the c.d.c. couldn’t process tens of thousands of tests. the c.d.c. wasn’t entirely responsible for the delay. the f.d.a. might have authorized a version of the test kit without the problematic third component, and loosened the reins on tests developed by other labs. not until february 26th did the f.d.a. permit public health labs to use the c.d.c. test kit without the third component. only on february 29th could other labs proceed with their own tests. secretary azar held the f.d.a. responsible for the absence of alternative tests. a senior administration official told me, “instead of being more flexible, the f.d.a. became more regulatory. the f.d.a. effectively outlawed every other covid test in america.” stephen hahn, the f.d.a.’s commissioner, says, “that’s just not correct,” and notes that more than three hundred tests are currently authorized. but there was only one other test by the end of february. whether the delay was caused mainly by the c.d.c. or the f.d.a., azar oversaw both agencies. without the test kits, contact tracing was stymied; without contact tracing, there was no obstacle in the contagion’s path. america never once had enough reliable tests distributed across the nation, with results available within two days. by contrast, south korea, thanks to universal public insurance and lessons learned from a 2015 outbreak of mers, provided free, rapid testing and invested heavily in contact tracing, which was instrumental in shutting down chains of infection. the country has recorded some fifty thousand cases of covid. the u.s. now reports more than four times that number per day. “one day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear,” the president told the american people on february 27th. at the time, there were only fifteen known cases of covid in the u.s., and nearly all involved travellers or people close to them. as trump made his promise, a hundred and seventy five employees of the biotech firm biogen were heading home from a conference held at a marriott in boston. the attendees, many of whom had travelled from other states or foreign countries, had gathered for two days in banquet rooms, shared crowded elevators, and worked out in the gym. soon, many fell ill. researchers affiliated with massachusetts general hospital and the broad institute of m.i.t. and harvard believe that sars cov 2 was probably introduced to the conference by a single individual. about a hundred people associated with the conference eventually tested positive. the viral strain that they contracted had unusual mutations, allowing researchers to track its spread. in a recent study published in science, the researchers reported that the biogen outbreak may have been responsible for three hundred thousand cases in the u.s. alone. during the study’s initial stages, in february and march, the researchers were discomfited by the implications of their data. “the rapidity and degree of spread suggested it wasn’t a series of one to one to one transmissions,” dr. jacob lemieux, a lead author, told me. rather, it was “one to many transmission events.” that raised the question of airborne transmission. “at the time, the idea was heretical,” lemieux said. “we were afraid to consider it, because it implied a whole different approach to infection control” one in which masks played a central role, especially indoors. but the w.h.o. had repeatedly proclaimed that large respiratory droplets as from a sneeze or a cough drove the spread. this wasn’t based on data about the new virus, lemieux said: “it was received wisdom based on how previous respiratory viruses had behaved. the global public health infrastructure has egg on its face. there’s a component of human nature that, until you get burned, you don’t know how hot the fire is.” vaccines were in development around the world, but pottinger was hearing that they wouldn’t be available for eighteen months at the earliest. even that would be a record. a vaccine must be subjected to three trials of increasing size, to determine safety, effectiveness, and proper dosage. pharmaceutical companies then invest in production, ramping up from thousands of doses to millions. pottinger and navarro, the china trade adviser, advocated for a way to radically shorten the time frame: companies would be paid to manufacture vaccine candidates that were still in trials and might never be used. if any ended up being successful, americans could be inoculated in less than a year. at the end of february, navarro wrote a memo proposing a three billion dollar supplemental budget appropriation to cover the cost of an accelerated vaccine process, p.p.e. for frontline workers, and effective therapeutics. azar recognized the need for a major budget supplement, but after he met with mulvaney, trump’s acting chief of staff, he declared that eight hundred million dollars was enough for now. pottinger was apoplectic. the administration was in denial. there were now more cases outside china than within. italy and iran were exploding. and yet mulvaney and the office of management and budget insisted on viewing the contagion as a kind of nasty influenza that could only be endured. at home, pottinger fumed to yen that eight hundred million dollars was half the sum needed just to support vaccine development through phase iii trials. “call debi,” yen suggested. debi was deborah birx, the u.s. global aids coördinator. in the mid eighties, as an army doctor, birx studied immunology and aids at fauci’s clinic. they walked the hallways together, watching their patients die. birx then moved to walter reed army medical center, where she worked on an h.i.v./aids vaccine. at walter reed, birx worked with redfield. from 2005 to 2014, she led the c.d.c.’s division of global h.i.v./aids (making her yen pottinger’s boss). birx was known to be effective and data driven, but also autocratic. yen described her as “super dedicated,” adding, “she has stamina and she’s demanding, and that pisses people off.” that’s exactly the person pottinger was looking for. birx was in johannesburg when pottinger called and asked her to join the coronavirus task force, as its coördinator. she was ambivalent. when she had started her job at the c.d.c., some african countries had h.i.v. infection rates as high as forty per cent. through the steady application of public health measures and the committed collaboration of african governments, the virus’s spread had been vastly reduced. what if she turned her attention and the numbers skyrocketed? then again, covid would likely run rampant through the same immune compromised population she was devoted to protecting. she went to washington. as march approached, secretary azar had to defend his supplemental budget request before a senate appropriations subcommittee. earlier, the senators had been briefed that a grave coronavirus outbreak in the u.s. was likely. patty murray, the democrat from washington state, was on the committee. “you’ve had a month now to prepare,” she said. “is our country ready?” “our country is preparing every day,” azar responded. “you sent over a supplemental that wasn’t clear to me at all,” murray said. she listed actions that azar had said were necessary. none were listed in the budget on the table. “did you stockpile any of these critical supplies that we are told we need masks, protective suits, ventilators, anything?” “we do have in the strategic national stockpile ventilators, we have masks, we have ” “enough?” “of course not, or we wouldn’t be asking for a supplemental,” azar said. “i didn’t see any numbers in your request,” murray said. azar said that the details were being worked out. murray persisted: “i’m very concerned about this administration’s attitude. we’re not stockpiling those things right now that we know we might possibly need.” she concluded, “we are way behind the eight ball.” on february 27th, the c.d.c. began allowing tests for people who hadn’t been to china or in close contact with someone known to be infected. the next day, doctors in washington state tested two people from a nursing home, in the seattle suburb of kirkland, that was overrun with pneumonia. both tested positive. america’s blindfold was finally coming off. trump, however, continued offering false assurances. “we’re testing everybody that we need to test,” he proclaimed. “we’re finding very little problem.” on february 29th, washington’s governor, jay inslee, reported that someone in his state had died of covid. it was the first official death from the disease in the u.s., although it was later established that two californians had died from it weeks earlier. many others may have as well. inslee declared a state of emergency. one of senator murray’s relatives had been in the kirkland facility a few years earlier. “i knew how many people came in and out of it, visitors and staff,” she told me. she said to herself, “wow, this contagious virus, it can’t have just stayed in a nursing home.” soon, friends of murray’s got sick. she urged them to get tested, but they said, “i’ve asked my doctor, i’ve asked the public health people in the county, i’ve called the state health people nobody has these tests.” her state was in turmoil. in senate hearings and briefings, though, she sensed a lack of coördination and urgency. the democratic caucus went on a retreat in baltimore. murray received a text from her daughter, whose children attended school near the nursing home. “they closed the schools,” her daughter said. she added, “kids are sick, teachers are sick. this is really frightening.” murray told her colleagues, “my daughter’s school closed. this is coming to you.” while this was happening, i was in houston, in rehearsals for a play i’d written about the 1978 camp david summit. oskar eustis, of new york’s public theatre, was directing. i have a memory of the preview performances which later came back to me, charged with significance. the actors were performing in the round, and slanted lighting illuminated their faces against the shadowy figures of audience members across the way. when one actor expostulated, bursts of saliva flew from his mouth. some droplets arced and tumbled, but evanescent particles lingered, forming a dim cloud. at the time, i found this dramatic, adding to the forcefulness of the character. later, i thought, this is what a superspreader looks like. i have no idea how eustis got sick. but when he abruptly flew back to new york and missed opening night, on february 20th, i knew that something was wrong. texas was thought to be outside the danger zone that month, but retrospective modelling suggested that the virus likely had been infecting at least ten people a day since the middle of the month. the same was true for new york, california, washington, illinois, and florida. by the end of february, there was probable local transmission in thirty eight states. the virus continued hitchhiking with passengers coming from other hot spots. between december and march, there were thirty two hundred direct flights from china to the u.s., many of them landing in new york. more consequentially, sixty per cent of flights from italy to the u.s. landed in the new york area. some of these passengers carried a more contagious mutation of sars cov 2. on march 10th, italy entered lockdown, and the next day the w.h.o. finally declared a pandemic. by that time, there were more than a hundred thousand cases in a hundred and fourteen countries. “just stay calm,” trump remarked. “it will go away.” weeks had passed from the point when containment was possible. on february 25th, nancy messonnier, a senior director at the c.d.c., warned, “we will see community spread in this country. it’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more a question of exactly when.” without vaccines or treatments, communities needed to rely on such measures as school closures, social distancing, teleworking, and delaying elective surgeries. people should expect missed work and loss of income. parents needed a child care plan. “i understand this whole situation may seem overwhelming,” she said. “but these are things that people need to start thinking about now.” a steep drop in the stock market followed messonnier’s blunt assessment. the president, who had encouraged americans to judge his performance by market indicators, was enraged. the next time messonnier spoke in public, she was quick to praise trump, saying that the country had acted “incredibly quickly.” amy klobuchar dropped out of the presidential race on march 2nd and flew to dallas to endorse joe biden. the stage was filled with supporters. as the crowd cried, “let’s go, joe!,” she embraced biden. but as she did so she said to herself, “joe biden shouldn’t get covid.” she warned his advisers to begin taking greater precautions. on the first friday in march, she attended a biden rally in detroit. that night, employees in the wayne county sheriff’s office gathered for an annual party at bert’s, a soul food and jazz venue. most of the officers were black; some had retired. at the time, there were no known cases of covid in michigan. three weeks later, seven of the attendees had covid, and dozens more in the sheriff’s office were ill. by the end of march, three law enforcement officials had died. at the rally, klobuchar noticed that people had become more careful. “i put on gloves,” she said. “we didn’t know about masks at the time.” democratic rallies soon came to a halt. bellevue hospital, on first avenue in manhattan, is “the grande dame of america’s public hospitals,” the historian david oshinsky told me. since it opened, as an almshouse, in the eighteenth century, nobody has been turned away, whether the patient can afford treatment or not. bellevue has endured epidemics of cholera and yellow fever, diseases that sent untold thousands to their graves in the potters’ fields that are now washington square and bryant park. in the nineteen eighties, bellevue treated more aids patients than any other american hospital. in 1983, nate link began an internship at bellevue, and almost immediately pricked himself, by accident, with a contaminated needle. he thought it was a death sentence, but he escaped infection. the work was both harrowing and thrilling. “i felt like i was in the epicenter of the universe,” he told me. he is now bellevue’s chief medical officer. during the 2014 ebola outbreak in africa, link and his colleagues knew that, if ebola spread to new york, the patients would end up at bellevue. the hospital built an ebola unit and a dedicated laboratory, training hundreds of staff and storing additional personal protective equipment. the instant they finished their preparations, a patient appeared. he survived. bellevue then sent emissaries across the country to help hospitals prepare special facilities, develop protocols, and train their staffs for novel infections. had it not been for the foresight of link and his colleagues, america would be far less prepared for the covid onslaught. once the coronavirus emerged, bellevue’s special pathogens team began preparing a protocol. “we thought we’d get one or two cases, just like ebola,” link recalled. but by early march the hospital was admitting a stream of patients with fever and unexplained respiratory problems. they were labelled p.u.i.: patients under investigation. tests weren’t available. “we had this sense that there was this invisible force out there,” link recalled. he believes that the city already had tens of thousands of cases, but, “without testing, there was just no way to know it was a sneak attack.” when the city reported its first positive case, on march 1st, only thirty two tests had been conducted. asymptomatic carriers and people with mild symptoms slipped through the nets. the testing guidelines almost seemed designed to undercount the spread. on march 10th, eustis, the theatre director, walked half a mile from his home, in brooklyn, to an emergency clinic on amity street. his muscles ached. twice he had to stop and catch his breath, sitting for a while on a fire hydrant. he was too exhausted to be afraid. his vital signs showed dangerously low potassium levels, and his heart kept skipping beats. an ambulance ferried him to a brooklyn hospital. an antibody test eventually showed that he had the coronavirus. despite his condition, there was no room for eustis. he was placed on a gurney with an i.v. potassium drip and left in a corridor overnight. he soiled himself, but nobody came to change him. he was given no food for thirty six hours. the covid surge had begun. on march 11th, dr. barron lerner was at his office in bellevue. the hospital had begun implementing triage at the front desk for patients with respiratory problems. that morning, at a staff conference, doctors were told, “if you’re talking to a patient you think might have covid, you excuse yourself from the room. you say, ‘o.k., i need to leave now. a nurse is going to come in and give you a mask.’ ” lerner met with a regular patient, an asian immigrant who didn’t speak english. bellevue maintains a staff of a hundred translators, and one of them connected to a dual telephone system. “about ten days ago, she had a fever,” the translator told lerner. “then she was coughing, and she’s been really short of breath since then.” “i thought, i can’t believe this just happened,” lerner recalled. “i was probably the first staff member to be exposed.” he was sent home and told to monitor his temperature. he and his wife began sleeping in separate bedrooms. five days later, the fever struck. meanwhile, eustis was released after four days, still shaky. upon returning home, he immediately went to bed. he turned out to have “long haul” covid. “it comes in waves,” he told me. “i’m struggling with extreme fatigue and continued muscle pain.” working wasn’t an option in any case: every theatre in new york had gone dark. vice president mike pence was now in charge of the task force, but azar remained a member. meetings were often full of acrimony. olivia troye, a former homeland security adviser to pence, told me, “i can’t even begin to describe all these insane factions in the white house. i often thought, if these people could focus more on doing what’s right for the country rather than trying to take each other down, we’d be in a much different place.” fauci, she recalled, was considered too “outspoken and blunt” with the media, which led such trump administration officials as jared kushner and peter navarro to complain that he was “out of control.” troye summed up the administration’s prevailing view of birx crisply: “they hate her.” at task force briefings, birx typically presented a slide deck, and troye once caught white house staff members rolling their eyes. marc short, pence’s chief of staff, remarked, “how long is she going to instill fear in america?” on march 11th, members of the coronavirus task force crowded into the oval office, where they were joined by kushner, ivanka trump, secretary of state mike pompeo, and a dozen others. according to the official who kept contemporaneous notes, birx and fauci pushed for shutting down european travel. “every seed case you prevent is a cluster of cases you prevent,” birx explained. redfield and azar had swung around to the idea that cutting off european travel might buy time, but steven mnuchin, the treasury secretary, heatedly insisted that doing so would cripple the u.s. economy and trigger a global depression. the markets would crater. “forget about ballgames!” he said, pointedly adding, “forget about campaign rallies!” after an hour, the president had another obligation, and he asked pence to keep the discussion going. the group adjourned to the cabinet room. mnuchin argued that there must be ways to curb viral spread without banning travel. the elderly were at high risk why not sequester the most vulnerable? “it’s twenty five per cent of the population!” robert o’brien, the national security adviser, observed. “you’re not going to be able to stick them all in hotels.” fauci had recently warned the group that the outbreak was going to get far worse, saying, “there’s no place in america where it’s business as usual. by the time you mitigate today, we’re three weeks late.” colleges were sending students home, further contributing to the spread. another member of the task force noted that, in a bad flu season, sixty thousand americans might die. what was the difference? “this is twenty times that,” pottinger argued. “this is two per cent dead, where the flu is .1 per cent.” “if we just let this thing ride, there could be two million dead,” birx said. “if we take action, we can keep the death toll at a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty thousand.” it was surreal hearing such numbers laid out so nakedly. mnuchin demanded data. he felt that the u.s. just had to live with the virus. it wasn’t worth sacrificing the airlines, the cruise ships, the hotels. “this is going to bankrupt everyone,” he said. “boeing won’t sell a single jet.” “you keep asking me for my data,” birx said, sharply. “what data do you have? does it take into account hundreds of thousands of dead americans?” in the end, her side won. that evening, in an unusually formal speech from the white house, the president announced that he was suspending travel from europe for the next month. “we are marshalling the full power of the federal government and the private sector to protect the american people,” he promised. he had also signed a bill providing $8.3 billion to help the c.d.c. and other government agencies fight the virus. he highlighted the danger the elderly faced and urged nursing homes to suspend unnecessary visits. he advised social distancing and not shaking hands practices that he hadn’t yet adopted himself. trump’s speech included his usual distortions. he claimed that insurance companies had agreed to “waive all co payments for coronavirus treatments,” though they’d agreed only to waive fees for tests. but, for perhaps the first time, he was presenting himself as a unifier as a take charge consoler in chief. if he had continued playing that role, america would have had a different experience with the contagion. glenn hubbard is a conservative economist who served as the chairman of president george w. bush’s council of economic advisers. soon after the pandemic began, he became involved in discussions in washington about how to handle the financial impact. hubbard told me, “i and other economists had been worried about a doom loop” a cycle of negative economic feedback. when the pandemic hit, the world suffered a supply shock: trade was disrupted, factories and stores closed. if workers didn’t start earning again soon, the supply shock could turn into a demand shock, and that would further weaken supply, which would increase unemployment and further diminish demand. a doom loop. in mid march, hubbard spoke with the republican senators marco rubio, of florida; susan collins, of maine; and roy blunt, of missouri. the n.b.a. had just suspended its season. economic forecasts were terrifying. the senators were getting panicked reports from business owners back home. only collins had been in office during the 2008 financial crisis, when congress had passed a seven hundred billion dollar bill to bail out troubled assets the outer limit of what these conservatives had ever imagined spending. now they were talking about trillions. enlarging the deficit and expanding the federal government’s reach were anathema to the republican caucus; to some members, it smacked of socialism. rubio indicated that he would never support such spending in normal times. “you need to do something,” hubbard warned. “we’ve been having a debate for decades now about the size of government. the more interesting debate is the scope of government.” he spoke of the first republican president, abraham lincoln: “he decided to do the homestead act, land grant colleges, and to lay the foundation for the transcontinental railroad. if lincoln, in the middle of the civil war, had the idea of using government as a battering ram for opportunity, why can’t we do that today? instead of focussing on how big government is, think about what you want it to do.” rubio, who is the chairman of the small business committee, thought about the restaurants, the travel companies, the hair salons all of them service businesses “with the least ability to survive.” the action that congress was contemplating was heresy from a fiscal conservative perspective, but the alternative failing businesses, deepening poverty, boundless unemployment was worse. action was necessary, the senators agreed. as it turned out, there was a surprising logistical problem: the treasury department had previously bailed out corporations and given checks to individuals, but it wasn’t clear how to give assistance to small businesses. collins was working on a loan forgiveness program, and rubio was trying to figure out how to create a new loan program through the small business administration’s existing network of lenders. “that’s when the paycheck protection program arose as an idea,” rubio told me. loans taken out to keep people on the payroll could be forgiven, offering employees assurance that their jobs would still be there when the clouds cleared. the democrats were fully on board, and congress soon approved three hundred and fifty billion dollars’ worth of forgivable loans to small businesses. the over all relief package was even larger. chris coons, a democratic senator from delaware, told me, “we went from ‘we don’t know what to do’ to nine hundred pages and $2.2 trillion in about ten days. i’ve never seen anything like it.” hubbard said, “nothing like a big shock to help people become more bipartisan.” on march 12th, amy klobuchar was back in minnesota. her husband, john bessler, who teaches law at the university of baltimore, remained in washington. he awoke that morning feeling ill. “he was going to take my place at my constituent breakfast in d.c.,” klobuchar recalled. “it was when he would have been most contagious, as we now know. there would have been around fifty people, in a small room. and then he was going to a faculty meeting about sixty people, in a small room. then he was going to get on an airplane and fly to minnesota, with a bunch of people packed in. i was having some minor surgery at mayo, and he was going to come there! he really would have had quite a day of infecting people.” they had no idea how he’d caught the virus. he was fifty two and, until then, in excellent health. bessler stayed home, and steadily grew worse. for more than a week, klobuchar kept calling, anxiously asking what his temperature was. their only thermometer was in centigrade, so klobuchar had to google the conversion. each time, it exceeded a hundred degrees. hearing that he was short of breath, she urged him to see a doctor, worrying that “it was one of those cases where people are underestimating how sick they are, and then they die the next day.” after bessler coughed up blood, he went to the hospital to get tested. he had severe pneumonia. doctors kept telling klobuchar, “the oxygen is getting worse.” she couldn’t visit him, making the ordeal even more frightening. bessler spent five days in the hospital. he recuperated, and was back in the couple’s d.c. apartment when his test finally came back positive. dr. lerner’s covid case was mild. he returned to work at bellevue after twelve days, on march 23rd. the city had become weirdly quiet: first avenue resembled an abandoned set on a studio back lot. during his absence, a tent had been erected in the courtyard, for screening patients. everyone now wore a mask. non covid patients in intensive care were shuttled to the postoperative surgical unit, which was available because all surgeries had been cancelled. this freed up fifty six i.c.u. beds. workers installed hepa filters in each room, creating negative pressure that prevented infected air from escaping. offices were turned into more patient units; as soon as carpenters walked out of a converted room, a patient was wheeled in. twenty five more spaces for ventilator patients were added in the e.r. when all the beds filled, the i.c.u. cubicles were doubled up. lerner, still recovering, tended to his patients through televisits, taking hour long naps as bellevue whirled around him. in mid march, bellevue had its first covid death: a middle aged patient with no preëxisting conditions, who had been hospitalized for two weeks. dr. amit uppal, the director of critical care, recalled, “among our staff, we just looked at each other and said, ‘o.k., here we go.’ and from there it just exponentially ramped up.” uppal, the son of indian immigrants, grew up in northern california and did his medical training at ohio state. he was drawn to bellevue because he wanted to serve the disadvantaged, but also because of the staff “people that could work anywhere in the country and chose to defend this population.” uppal wanted to specialize in critical care so that he could handle the most extreme diseases. he was prepared to face the knotty ethical dilemmas at the limits of medical knowledge. part of the mission at bellevue is helping patients die well. “it provides you a rare perspective on your own life,” uppal said. “many laypeople who don’t do medicine, and aren’t exposed to end of life issues, may not have the opportunity to reflect on what’s really important to them until the end of their own life.” but covid seemed cruelly designed to frustrate the rituals of death. just as bellevue’s first patients began dying, the hospital was flooded with new admissions. the i.c.u.’s typical mortality rate was far lower than covid’s, so even critical care staff like uppal were unsettled. such doctors knew how to click into emergency mode. before covid, that might last thirty or forty minutes say, with a heart attack patient. after a bus wreck or a mass casualty event, emergency mode could last a full day. with covid, it lasted weeks on end. during rounds, uppal passed each of the i.c.u.’s fifty six cubicles. the patients were all on ventilators, the distinctive gasping sound unvaried. i.v. lines extended outside each cubicle, so attendants didn’t have to enter to administer medication. in the antiseptic gloom, the patients appeared identical. it was too easy to overlook their humanity. uppal forced himself to examine their charts. he needed to recapture “what made them unique.” overwhelmed hospitals in new york’s outer boroughs transferred more than six hundred patients to bellevue, knowing that nobody would be turned away. the e.r. became a hot zone where many people coming off the street required immediate intubation. before covid, the e.r. was always jammed, and nobody wore p.p.e. nate link told me, “when covid hit, we made a promise to ourselves that we would not let the emergency rooms back up, and that we would keep them pristine.” staffers had to remain swathed in p.p.e., link said, adding, “in the end, only fifteen per cent of the staff in the emergency department tested positive. that’s lower than the hospital in general. it’s even a bit less than the city average. the message is that p.p.e. works.” some doctors needed new roles to play. orthopedic surgeons began devoting their shifts to turning patients “proning” to facilitate breathing. ophthalmologists helped in the i.c.u.; general surgeons treated non covid patients. “everybody found a niche,” link said. “we were a completely different hospital for three months.” more than twenty thousand new yorkers died from covid in the spring. as the numbers mounted, link noticed that employees were practicing “psychological distancing.” he said, “our staff had never seen so much death. normally, a patient dying would be such a big deal, but, when you start having a dozen patients die in a day, you have to get numb to that, or you can’t really cope.” this emotional remove was shattered when the first staff member died: a popular nurse, ernesto (audie) de leon, who’d worked at bellevue for thirty three years. link said, “his death was followed by a covid style ‘wake,’ as many of his colleagues approached his i.c.u. cubicle in full p.p.e., put their hands on the glass door, and read scripture, prayed, and wept. because of the infection control restrictions, staff consoled each other without touching or hugging. it was very unnatural.” when bellevue’s doctors were at their lowest ebb, reinforcements arrived: hospital workers from other states flooded into new york to help. according to governor andrew cuomo, thirty thousand people responded to the city’s call for aid. it was a rare glimpse of national unity. “half the people in the i.c.u. had southern accents,” link told me. “that’s what saved us.” in mid march, america began shutting down. the coronavirus task force urged americans to work from home. education would be virtual. travel and shopping would stop. restaurants and bars would close. the goal was to break the transmission of the virus for fifteen days and “flatten the curve.” trump’s impatience flared. at a press briefing, he said of the virus, “it’s something we have tremendous control over.” fauci corrected him, observing that the worst was ahead, and noting, “it is how we respond to that challenge that’s going to determine what the ultimate end point is.” trump held a conference call with governors. “we’re backing you a hundred per cent,” he said. then he said, “also, though, respirators, ventilators, all the equipment try getting it yourselves.” most governors had assumed that, as in the event of a hurricane or a forest fire, the federal government would rush to help. storehouses of emergency equipment would be opened. the governors, faced with perilous shortages of ventilators, n95 masks, and nasal swabs, expected trump to invoke the defense production act, forcing private industry to produce whatever was needed. surely, there was a national plan. governor inslee, of washington, was flabbergasted when he realized that trump didn’t intend to mobilize the federal government. inslee told him, “that would be equivalent to franklin delano roosevelt, on december 8, 1941, saying, ‘good luck, connecticut, you go build the battleships.’ ” trump responded, “we’re just the backup.” “i don’t want you to be the backup quarterback,” inslee said. “we need you to be tom brady here.” larry hogan, the republican governor of maryland, was incensed. “you’re actively setting us up!” he told trump. matt pottinger’s brother, paul, kept sending desperate e mails from seattle. he had heard about medical workers fashioning p.p.e. out of materials from the home depot. industrial tape and marine grade vinyl were being turned into face shields. garbage bags were serving as surgical gowns. a local health official wrote him, “we are currently drafting up guidelines for how to make homemade masks from cloth and i’ve asked other innovators in the community to see if they can figure out if we can do anything that would be better than nothing.” matt wrote to paul, “help is on the way, but it probably won’t be in time so start tearing up bedsheets and turning them into lab coats, raid the salvation army for garments, wrap bras around your faces in place of facemasks if you have to.” the strategic national stockpile existed for such emergencies, but secretary azar had recently testified to the senate that it had only twelve million n95 masks a fraction of what was needed. the storehouse had once held more than a hundred million masks, but many were used during the 2009 h1n1 flu pandemic, and the supply wasn’t replenished. after trump made clear that the states were on their own, ned lamont, the gregarious governor of connecticut, called other governors in his region: phil murphy, of new jersey; charlie baker, of massachusetts; gina raimondo, of rhode island; and cuomo. the states needed to act together, lamont said. “if i close down bars and andrew keeps them open, that doesn’t solve any problems,” he said. “everybody’s going to go down there to drink, and bring back the infection.” the governors were daunted by the task facing them. lamont imagined furious constituents: “you’re going to close down the schools? my god!” acting in concert provided political cover and a sense of solidarity. the governors closed gyms, restaurants, and bars at the same time. lamont, murphy, and cuomo prohibited gatherings exceeding fifty people. baker and raimondo limited them to twenty five. cuomo announced, “if you were hoping to have a graduation party, you can’t do it in the state of new york, you can’t go do it in the state of new jersey, and you can’t do it in the state of connecticut.” governors discovered that the trump administration was sabotaging their efforts to protect citizens. charlie baker arranged to buy three million n95 masks from china, but federal authorities seized them at the port of new york, paying the supplier a premium. in another group call with trump, baker, a republican, complained, “we took seriously the push you made not to rely on the stockpile. i got to tell you, we lost to the feds. . . . i’ve got a feeling that, if somebody has to sell to you or me, i’m going to lose every one of those.” “price is always a component,” trump replied coldly. baker quietly secured a cache of 1.2 million masks from china, and enlisted the help of robert kraft, the owner of the new england patriots, who used the team plane to fly the shipment to logan airport, where it was received by the massachusetts national guard and spirited away. at a briefing, cuomo fumed, “you have fifty states competing to buy the same item. we all wind up bidding up each other.” he threw up his hands. “what sense does this make? the federal government fema should have been the purchasing agent.” gina raimondo pressed fema, saying, “can we tap into our national stockpile?” after days of giving her the runaround, the agency promised that a truckful of p.p.e. was on its way. at 9 p.m., she got a text saying that the truck had arrived. raimondo told politico, “i called my director of health. ‘great news, the truck is finally here!’ she says, ‘governor, it’s an empty truck.’ they sent an empty truck.” inslee told me, “only eleven per cent of the p.p.e. we’ve obtained has come from the federal government.” governors who got more had to show obeisance to trump. gavin newsom, of california, praised the president fulsomely after being promised a shipment of swabs. around this time, a reporter asked trump, “you’ve suggested that some of these governors are not doing everything they need to do. what more, in this time of a national emergency, should these governors be doing?” “simple,” trump said. “i want them to be appreciative.” in the spring, trump pressed the f.d.a. to fast track authorization of a malaria treatment, hydroxychloroquine, for covid patients. fox news touted the drug as a “game changer.” tucker carlson and laura ingraham aired breathless interviews with gregory rigano, who had co written a “paper” a self published google doc calling the drug an effective treatment. rigano, a lawyer, had recently started blockchain funds that aimed to “cheat death” and “end alzheimer’s.” between march 23rd and april 6th, hydroxychloroquine was mentioned on fox news nearly three hundred times. white house officials, including peter navarro, heavily promoted it. at a task force briefing, fauci was asked if hydroxychloroquine curbed the coronavirus. “the answer is no,” he said. the president glowered and stepped toward the mike. “i’m a big fan,” he said. three months later, the f.d.a. withdrew its authorization. the drug was ineffective and caused “serious cardiac adverse events” and other side effects, including kidney disorders and death. when hydroxychloroquine was paired with azithromycin a combination that trump had publicly championed patients were twice as likely to suffer cardiac arrest as those who took neither drug. fox news stopped hyping hydroxychloroquine, but trump still wanted a quick fix. while cases in new york were doubling every three days, and doctors were treating patients in tents in central park, he declared that he wanted america “raring to go” by easter. over all, the case fatality rate for covid is two per cent. but for people over seventy five the risk of death is hundreds of times greater than it is for those under thirty. the devaluation of elderly lives was evident in the low standard of care in many nursing homes, where forty per cent of u.s. deaths have occurred, despite accounting for only eight per cent of cases. in march, two hundred and thirty five military veterans were living at the soldiers’ home in holyoke, massachusetts. some had served in the second world war. now they were captives to a system that was failing to protect them. according to an independent investigation commissioned by the state, family members and workers had long complained about understaffing, in part because of a 2015 hiring freeze ordered by governor baker. on march 17th, a veteran who had been showing symptoms for weeks was tested for covid. he lived in one of two dementia units; he wasn’t isolated, not even after his test came back positive, four days later. contagion took hold, and overburdened employees made the fateful decision to combine the two units, with beds placed in tight rows. many disoriented veterans climbed into the wrong beds, accelerating the spread. a recreational therapist said that she felt as if she were leading her patients “to their death.” on friday, march 20th, michael miller, who is retired from the army national guard, got a call from his two sisters, linda mckee and susan perez. “they’re not thinking dad’s gonna make it through the night,” they said. their father, james l. miller, was ninety six, and had been at the soldiers’ home since 2015. the siblings drove to the facility. only one family member could enter at a time. mike went in while his sisters waited in the car. his father “looked like a corpse,” he recalled. “he had been in that state of decay for a week, and nobody called us.” jim miller had landed at normandy beach on d day. he had helped liberate a concentration camp near nordhausen, germany. after mustering out, he became a postal worker and a firefighter. he was a taciturn man who had rarely discussed his military service with his children. now this quiet old veteran was dying in the midst of bedlam. “men were just wandering around,” mike said. “they were in various states of dress. there was a curtain drawn for my dad other veterans would open the curtain and stand there. and these gentlemen i knew. they meant no disrespect.” a man on a nearby bed was “just moaning he couldn’t breathe. he ended up passing away that night.” staffers couldn’t offer the dying residents anything but “comfort measures” morphine under the tongue. jim was so dehydrated that he couldn’t swallow. “give him an i.v.!” mike pleaded. but staffers weren’t authorized to do this; nor could they transport him to a hospital. mike moistened his dad’s mouth with a foam swab. nurses broke down, mike recalled: “they loved my dad. but they couldn’t do anything.” he never saw any administrators. mike returned each day as his sisters kept vigil in the parking lot. on saturday, they witnessed the arrival of a refrigerated truck that had been sent to store bodies. on monday, jim miller passed away. before it was all over, at least seventy five other veterans had died. in the covid world, everyone is in disguise. when dr. ebony hilton enters a room, patients see wide set, lively eyes above her surgical mask. her hair and body are hidden by a bonnet and a gown. her accent marks her as a southerner. she calls herself a “country girl,” which is at odds with her assured manner. when the call comes to intubate a covid patient, “it’s already a situation where somebody is dying,” she told me. “the only reason i’m placing this breathing tube is because your body is shutting down, so if i don’t touch you you’re dead.” she added, “if i do touch you, i could die.” hilton, who is thirty eight, is a professor and an anesthesiologist at the university of virginia school of medicine, in charlottesville. u.va.’s hospital has some six hundred beds, but at night hilton often works alone: “i’m literally the only anesthesiologist attending for the entire hospital. at that moment, i can’t shut down, i can’t go to my room and let fear stop me.” she continued, “i don’t think any of us have slowed down to think that this could be the one that gets me sick. you don’t have time to consider options a, b, c, and d. you’ve got to gown up and go.” one day in early march, hilton got a page. a patient was septic, meaning that an infection had entered her bloodstream and was raging through her body. her kidneys were starting to fail. ordinarily, doctors would suspect bacteria as the cause, but the infection’s spread had been alarmingly rapid, and the symptoms matched what doctors were reporting about covid patients in china and italy. many health care workers had noted the speed with which the infection killed when it made its move. hilton entered the room, wearing an n95 mask. the patient had no blood pressure; without intervention, her oxygen starved brain would start dying within seconds. the procedure for intubation requires a pillow to be placed under the patient’s shoulder blades, so that the head is tilted back in the “sniffing position.” hilton made sure that the patient was oxygenated and given a sedative and a muscle relaxant; then she pried her mouth open, pushed her tongue aside, and inserted a laryngoscope a curved blade attached to a handle, which looks like the head of a walking cane. the device lifts the epiglottis, exposing the vocal cords. if the vocal cords don’t readily appear, pressure on the larynx can bring them into view. hilton slowly inserted a plastic tube through the narrow portal between the vocal cords, down into the trachea. once the tube was secured, the patient was connected to a ventilator. that was probably hilton’s first covid patient, but there was no way to know. virginia had barely any tests in early march. hilton comes from a community near spartanburg, south carolina, called little africa. after the civil war, simpson foster, a formerly enslaved man, and a cherokee named emanuel waddell founded the community as an agrarian refuge. “it’s tiny,” hilton said. “we don’t have a red light. we only have my great uncle hobbs’s store he keeps snacks and stuff for us.” little africa is in the foothills of the blue ridge mountains. “when you’re sitting on the porch, you can see the skyline of the peaks,” ebony’s mother, mary hilton, told me. “we have doctors, lawyers, judges we have so many professions coming out of the little africa community, because we put so much emphasis on education, taking care of each other,” she said. “eb is coming from a very powerful place.” when ebony was eight, her little sister asked mary if they could have a brother. mary was caught by surprise but answered honestly: her first child had been a boy. “i was seventeen,” she recalled. “i had never heard of an ob gyn. we always went to the clinic.” she went alone; her mother was picking cotton. mary suspects that, during a pregnancy exam, a technician punctured her amniotic sac. the boy was born prematurely and died after three days. “i told eb that story, not knowing it would change her life,” mary said. the moment ebony heard it, she announced that she was going into medicine. her resolve must have been evident: right then, mary began calling her dr. hilton. not long ago, ebony and her sisters, brandi and kyndran, placed a tombstone for the brother they never knew. they erected it in the churchyard of the new bedford baptist church, in little africa. “he was a fighter,” ebony told me. “he tried to beat the odds. so i try to finish out that mission for him.” hilton’s image of her future was formed by watching “dr. quinn, medicine woman.” she attended the medical university of south carolina, intending to become an obstetrician gynecologist. “one night, when i was on my ob rotation, there was a lady having a seizure she actually had eclampsia and this guy ran into the room and started shouting orders, like, ‘i’m going to do the a line,’ ‘you start a magnesium.’ i leaned over and asked, ‘who is that guy?’ one of the obs said, ‘oh, that’s the anesthesia resident.’ ” hilton told herself, “i want to be the person that, when there’s utter chaos, you know what to do.” in 2013, she became the first black female anesthesiologist to be hired by the medical university of south carolina, which opened in 1824. u.va. hired her in 2018. “growing up in medicine, what i’ve come to realize is that, should i have a child, it would actually be at more risk of dying than my mom’s child was,” she said. she cited a duke university study that correlated race and education levels: “if you look at white women with my same level of degrees, my child is five to seven times more likely to die before his first birthday than theirs. it’s been that way historically for black women. our numbers haven’t really changed, as far as health outcomes, since slavery times.” many minorities suffer from co morbidities. “that’s where the social determinants of health kick in,” hilton said. asthma and chronic respiratory disease can be the result of air pollution say, from an industrial plant in a low income neighborhood. “if you’re in a gated community, you don’t see smoke billowing out of these industries, because you have the money and power to influence the policymakers to say, ‘you can’t put that here.’ ” heart failure, obesity, and diabetes are tied to whether or not there are nearby restaurants and grocery stores with healthy options. she pointed out that, in south carolina, one in every five counties doesn’t have a hospital; eleven counties don’t have any ob gyns. the moment the first american covid death was announced, in february, hilton said, she “started doing a tweetstorm to c.d.c. and w.h.o., saying, ‘we know racial health disparities exist, and they existed before covid and we know where this will end up.’ ” she demanded, “tell us who you’re testing and who you’re not.” the c.d.c. didn’t release comprehensive data until july, after the times sued for it. the country, it turned out, was experiencing wildly different pandemics. for every ten thousand americans, there were thirty eight coronavirus cases. but, for whites, the number was twenty three; for blacks, it was sixty two; for hispanics, it was seventy three. at hilton’s hospital, seven of the first ten covid fatalities were people of color. hilton and her colleagues went to minority communities in and around charlottesville to provide testing at churches and shopping centers. “minorities are less likely to be tested, which means they might go back home, where they have the capability to infect their entire community,” she said. people of color are more likely to be exposed because so many are essential workers. “only one in five african americans can work remotely,” she said. “only one in six hispanics can.” staffers at u.va.’s hospital prepared their wills. hilton realized that she would be spending long hours away from her dog, barkley, so she bought a puppy “a dog for my dog” that she named bentley. “they barely get along,” she admitted. hilton’s neighbor, a nurse in the covid unit, has two children, and feared exposing them. the woman began living in her basement. one of the hardest moments at hilton’s hospital came when lorna breen, a forty nine year old doctor, was admitted to the psych unit. her father, philip breen, is a retired trauma surgeon; her mother, rosemary breen, had been a nurse on the ward where lorna was admitted. lorna had been living in manhattan, overseeing the e.r. at newyork presbyterian allen hospital. when covid inundated new york, she worked twelve hour shifts that often blurred into eighteen. she barely slept. within a week, breen caught covid herself. she sweated it out in her apartment while managing her department remotely. after her fever broke, she returned to work, on april 1st. breen was defined by her vitality. she was a salsa dancer and a cellist in an amateur orchestra. she ran marathons; she drove a porsche convertible; in her spare time, she was pursuing an m.b.a. “she never left the party,” her sister, jennifer feist, told me. breen told feist that a trauma nurse was walking through the e.r. triaging patients based on how blue their faces were. so many doctors in new york fell ill that, at one point, breen supervised the e.r.s in two hospitals simultaneously. it became too much. as her father put it later, breen was “like a horse that had pulled too heavy a load and couldn’t go a step further and just went down.” breen called her sister one morning and said that she couldn’t get out of a chair. “she was catatonic,” feist told me. “covid broke her brain.” feist and her husband, corey, decided that breen needed to come home to virginia. a friend in connecticut drove lorna to philadelphia; another friend took her to baltimore. feist was waiting on the side of the road to drive her to charlottesville. during the eleven days that breen spent in u.va.’s hospital, she was terrified that her career was over. licensing boards, she knew, might flag evidence of mental illness. before covid, breen had never had a trace of instability. feist and her husband, both attorneys, assured her that she wouldn’t lose her license. breen seemed to improve: she even tried to do her m.b.a. homework on her phone. feist took breen home with her on the last saturday in april. the next day, breen killed herself. the pandemic has added immeasurable stress to a public health workforce already suffering from burnout. feist told me, “she got crushed because she was trying to help other people. she got crushed by a nation that was not ready for this. we should have been prepared for this. we should have had some sort of plan.” goldman sachs is a controversial name in high finance. its influence pervades american economic policy. three of the twelve presidents of the federal reserve have worked there. steven mnuchin, the treasury secretary, is a goldman alum. the company’s many critics see it as the pinnacle of avarice. they hold it responsible for contributing to the vast income disparities in america and see its alumni as manipulating government policy to further enrich the wealthy. but, in the upper chambers of power, goldman’s culture of success is revered. in the first quarter of 2020, the goldman view of the economy was exuberant. jan hatzius, its chief economist, told me, “we had come fully out of the deep downturn post 2008.” unemployment was near historically low levels; wages were creeping up. sure, median incomes hadn’t risen substantially since the seventies; the gap between the rich and the poor appeared unbridgeable. but those weren’t goldman problems. the company exists to make wealthy clients wealthier. when the wuhan outbreak began, the economic risk to america seemed low. previous pandemics, such as h1n1 and sars, had negligible economic impact on the u.s. on february 12th, with covid already rooted in this country, the dow jones closed at 29,551 a record high at the time. three weeks later, hatzius said, “we began the deepest contraction in the global economy on record.” hatzius compiled data for quarterly goldman g.d.p. forecasts. normally, he said, “you estimate the ups and downs of a business cycle by, say, relating people’s propensity to spend on consumer goods to their labor income or tax changes, or the effect of interest rate changes on the willingness or ability to buy homes.” this situation was different. “it wasn’t the case that people didn’t have the money to go to restaurants they couldn’t go to restaurants.” airlines stopped flying. car production ceased. entire sectors had to be subtracted from the economy: “it was more arithmetic than econometrics.” on march 27th, the times ran an apocalyptic headline: “job losses soar; u.s. virus cases top world.” curiously, by that time, the dow had reversed its plunge and begun a long climb that was strikingly at odds with the actual economy. in november, it once again reached record highs. steve strongin is a senior adviser at goldman. sixty two, he wears rimless glasses that lend him the aspect of a nineteenth century european intellectual: ibsen without the sideburns. “markets very often get talked about as though they’re some kind of giant casino,” he told me. “but they actually have a deep economic function, which is to move capital, both equity and debt, from businesses that no longer serve a purpose to businesses we need today.” the market’s initial reaction, strongin said, was “somehow we are going to freeze in place, the virus will pass, and then we’ll unfreeze.” during that phase, wall street’s function was to provide liquidity as clients turned to preservation strategies raising cash, drawing on lines of credit while waiting out the contagion. but the pandemic settled in like a dinner guest who wouldn’t leave and was eating everything in the pantry. “the moment when everybody was forced to reassess the severity and longevity of the crisis is when people realized that asymptomatic carriers were important,” strongin said. “that meant that all the prior controls were going to fail.” thousands of businesses would close. nobody alive had seen a catastrophe of such scale. the rules had to change. the pandemic was a historic disrupter, forcing a shift from short term to long term thinking. strongin, who once wrote a paper called “the survivor’s guide to disruption,” said, “once that realization came into place, you saw the rush to opportunity.” investors pivoted to a consolidation phase: going with the winners. the market recovery was led by five stocks facebook, apple, microsoft, google, and amazon accounting for more than twenty per cent of the s. & p. however, “the darwinian reality of capitalism is not about this brilliant insight into the five winners,” strongin said. “it’s about taking money away from the fifty thousand losers. it’s the core of the economic system we don’t prop up failures.” the most useful thing the government can do, he said, is help people start new small businesses: “the current split between the stock market and the employment numbers is a flashing warning that the economy and the people are not the same. if we don’t spend real money, the pain will be very real, and the political consequences dangerous at best.” the third and final chance to contain the infection masks was the easiest, the cheapest, and perhaps the most effective. but the administration, and the country, failed to meet the challenge. on march 4th, as matt pottinger was driving to the white house, he was on the phone with a doctor in china. taking notes on the back of an envelope while navigating traffic, he was hearing valuable new information about how the virus was being contained in china. the doctor mentioned the antiviral drug remdesivir which was just emerging as a possible therapy in the u.s. and emphasized that masks were extremely effective with covid, more so than with influenza. “it’s great to carry around your own hand sanitizer,” the doctor said. “but masks are going to win the day.” still on the phone when he parked his stick shift audi, on west executive avenue, next to the west wing, pottinger forgot to put on the parking brake. as he rushed toward his office, the car rolled backward, narrowly missing the vice president’s limo, before coming to rest against a tree. while the secret service examined the errant audi, pottinger kept thinking about masks. america’s pandemic response had already been handicapped by china’s withholding of information about human to human and asymptomatic transmission. the testing imbroglio would set the country back for months. but masks offered a ready solution. deborah birx had told pottinger that, whereas mask wearing is part of asian culture, americans couldn’t be counted on to comply. pottinger began to see america’s public health establishment as an impediment. the surgeon general, jerome adams, had tweeted, “stop buying masks! they are not effective in preventing general public from catching #coronavirus.” such messages were partly aimed at preventing the hoarding of hospital grade masks, but they dissuaded people from adopting all forms of face covering. in those early days, the u.s. medical establishment looked at sars cov 2 and flatly applied the algorithm for sars: sick people should wear masks, but for others they weren’t necessary. redfield, of the c.d.c., told me, “we didn’t understand until mid march that many people with covid weren’t symptomatic but were highly infectious.” pottinger, however, thought it was evident that, wherever a large majority of people wore masks, contagion was stopped “dead in its tracks.” hong kong was one of the world’s densest cities, but there was no community spread of the virus there, because nearly everyone wore masks. taiwan, which was manufacturing ten million masks per day for a population of twenty three million, was almost untouched. both places neighbored china, the epicenter. pottinger’s views stirred up surprisingly rigid responses from the public health contingent. in pottinger’s opinion, when redfield, fauci, birx, and hahn spoke, it could sound like groupthink, echoing the way that their public messaging was strictly coördinated. nobody in the white house wore a mask until pottinger donned one, in mid march. entering the west wing, he felt as if he were wearing a clown nose. people gawked. trump asked if he was ill. pottinger replied, “i just don’t want to be a footnote in history the guy who knocked off a president with covid.” many n.s.c. staffers work in the situation room, monitoring news and global developments. they are crammed together like workers in a call center. pottinger asked the staff virologist to teach everyone how to mask up. some people were annoyed. masks had become a political litmus test, with many conservatives condemning mask mandates as infringements on liberty, and to wear one in trump’s white house seemed borderline treasonous. pottinger was shocked to learn that, in any case, the white house had no ready supply of masks. he called an official in taiwan and asked for guidance about controlling the virus. masks, he was told again. soon after that call, taiwan’s president donated half a million masks to the u.s., via diplomatic pouch. pottinger took thirty six hundred, for the n.s.c. staff and the white house medical unit, and sent the rest to the national stockpile. in early april, new studies showed substantial reductions in transmission when masks were worn. pottinger put copies of the studies into binders for key task force members. a chinese study reported on an infected traveller who took two long bus rides. he began coughing on the first ride, then bought a face mask before boarding a minibus. five passengers on the first ride were infected, and no one on the second. another study failed to detect any viral particles in aerosol or droplets from subjects wearing surgical masks. on april 3rd, the c.d.c. finally proclaimed that masks were vital weapons. it was the last opportunity to do something meaningful to curb the pandemic. the c.d.c.’s sudden reversal, redfield admitted to me, was awkward: “when you have to change the message, the second message doesn’t always stick.” worse, when the president announced the new mask advisory, he stressed, “this is voluntary,” adding, “i don’t think i’m going to be doing it.” trump is a notorious germophobe. he hates shaking hands and recoils when anyone near him sneezes. he once chastised mick mulvaney, on camera in the oval office, “if you’re going to cough, please leave the room.” years before covid, trump told howard stern that he had a hand washing obsession, which “could be a psychological problem.” it’s one of the only frailties he acknowledges. he seems fascinated by his horror of contamination. how could such a man refuse to wear a mask in a pandemic? it wasn’t just trump, of course; the people around him followed his example. pence visited the mayo clinic without a mask, violating hospital policy. many republican legislators shunned masks even after members of their caucus became infected. it wasn’t just republicans, but democrats were twice as likely to say that masks should always be worn. it wasn’t just men, but women were more in favor of masks. it wasn’t just white people, but they were much more averse to mask wearing than blacks and latinos were. if you name each of the groups least likely to wear a mask, the result roughly correlates with the average trump voter. some anti maskers called the coronavirus a hoax; others believed that it wasn’t all that dangerous. but the image of the maskless president spoke to people, especially his base. he appeared defiant, masculine, invulnerable. he knew that the virus was dangerous “more deadly than even your strenuous flus,” as he told bob woodward, in a february interview that surfaced months later. yet he dared the virus to touch him, like lear raging against the storm. tens of millions of americans emulated the president’s bravado, and the unchecked virus prolonged unemployment, upended efforts to reopen the economy, and caused many more fatalities. “i’m not buying a fucking mask,” richard rose, a thirty seven year old army veteran from ohio, posted on facebook. “i’ve made it this far by not buying into that damn hype.” he tested positive on july 1st and died three days later. there are many similar stories. it’s dispiriting to think that, had such a simple precaution been broadly implemented from the start, america could have avoided so much suffering, death, impoverishment, and grief. the starkest example occurred in kansas, when the governor issued an executive order to wear masks in public but allowed counties to opt out. it was as if kansas were performing a clinical trial on itself. within two months, infections in mask wearing counties had fallen by six per cent; elsewhere, infections rose a hundred per cent. of course, wearing a mask was a much smaller burden than self isolating. although cnn repeatedly ran alarming footage of people who refused to stop going to bars or malls, a far greater number of americans had listened to the experts, sequestering themselves for months, at tremendous financial and emotional cost. my wife and i live in austin, and, as the quarantine dragged on, we forced ourselves to take an occasional drive, partly to keep our car battery alive. we’d snake through vacant streets downtown, grimly taking note of which businesses had boarded up since the previous drive. one april afternoon, i went for a jog on a school track near my home. a group of young women were running time trials in the hundred metre dash. they were the fastest people i had ever seen. occasionally, as i came around a curve, i’d pull even with one of the women just as she was taking off. it was like wile e. coyote eating the road runner’s dust. “what school do you guys run for?” i asked one of them, who was cooling off. “oh, it’s not a school,” she said. “we’re olympians.” instead of competing in tokyo, here they were, on a middle school track in austin, isolating together and trying to maintain peak condition as they waited for the rescheduled games. so many dreams have been deferred or abandoned. the corpse on the autopsy bench was a middle aged black man with covid 19. six feet four and two hundred and twenty three pounds, he had suffered from many of the co morbidities that ebony hilton had described to me. the medical examiner identified signs of heart disease and hypertension. the autopsy noted the presence of fentanyl and methamphetamine, which could be considered co morbidities, although they didn’t really factor into this case. the cause of death was a police officer’s knee on the neck. the victim was george floyd. on a video seen worldwide, four minneapolis policemen killed floyd as he was handcuffed and lying face down in the street. it was memorial day. one cop stood watch as two knelt on floyd’s back and held his legs while the fourth, derek michael chauvin, pressed his knee into floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes. at a time when health officials were begging people to stay home and avoid groups, protests arose in minneapolis, then spread across america. they called to mind the liberty loans parades in 1918 the ones that had served as potent vectors for the killer flu. nevertheless, thirteen hundred public health officials signed a letter supporting the demonstrations. hilton joined a protest in charlottesville on june 7th. hundreds of people marched to the rotunda at the university of virginia, carrying black lives matter signs and placards saying “let my people breathe.” i asked hilton if she was worried about the mass gatherings. she said that she expected a rise in infections. then she added, “for black men, one in every thousand is at risk of dying in his lifetime from an encounter with a police officer. if you think about that number, that’s what leads black people to say it’s worth me dying and going out to this protest and saying enough is enough. police brutality is almost like a pandemic, a generational pandemic. it’s a feeling i’m going to die anyway, so i might as well risk this virus that i can’t see, to speak about the virus of systemic racism that i can see.” surprisingly, the marches did not appear to be significant drivers of transmission. “we tested thousands of people,” michael osterholm, the director of the center for infectious disease research and policy, at the university of minnesota, said. “we saw no appreciable impact.” one study found lower rates of infection among marchers than in their surrounding communities. epidemiologists concluded that mask wearing and being outdoors protected the protesters. moreover, demonstrators were on the move. osterholm said that people in stationary crowds are more likely to become infected. in other words, joining a protest march is inherently less dangerous than attending a political rally. the president hadn’t gathered with supporters since march, and was eager to dive back into the pool of adulation. an event was scheduled for june 20th. “it’s going to be a hell of a night,” he promised. he tweeted, “almost one million people request tickets for the saturday night rally in tulsa, oklahoma!” only sixty two hundred showed up. trump was enraged by the dismal turnout but delivered his usual blustery speech. because oklahoma had just seen a record increase in covid cases, attendees were required to release the trump campaign from responsibility for any exposure. just before trump went onstage, two secret service officers and six campaign staffers tested positive. in the audience was herman cain, the former c.e.o. of godfather’s pizza and an erstwhile presidential candidate, who had become one of trump’s most prominent black supporters. like nearly everyone else, he was unmasked. he flew home to atlanta the next day, feeling exhausted “from his travels,” his daughter, melanie cain gallo, believed. it was father’s day, and she stopped by to give him a gift. they embraced. she had seen a photograph of him at the rally and wondered why he hadn’t worn a mask. cain had preached the virtue of social distancing and hand washing on “the herman cain show,” a web series that he hosted, and he had usually worn a mask in public. he told her that everyone entering the tulsa auditorium had passed a fever check an insufficient gauge. gallo worked with her dad all week on his show. by friday, they were both feeling ill, but cain filmed another episode. flanked by the american flag and a painting of ronald reagan, he looked wan, his eyes rheumy. he quoted a newspaper headline: “u.s. death rate falls for third day in a row.” other newscasts had hyped rising case counts, he complained, adding, “they never get to the death rate is falling.” on monday, both were sick enough to go to a clinic for a test. cain was feeling weak, so he waited by the car while gallo stood in a long line. suddenly, he passed out. an e.m.s. truck took him to the e.r. “they checked him out and said he was fine,” gallo recalled. they returned to the testing clinic. both were positive. her case was mild. on july 1st, cain was hospitalized. that day, he tweeted an article about a forthcoming trump rally at mt. rushmore. “masks will not be mandatory,” cain tweeted, adding approvingly, “people are fed up!” it was a defiant nod to trump’s base. cain died on july 30th. he was seventy four. for some public health officials, deborah birx had become an object of scorn. “she’s been a disaster,” a former head of the c.d.c. told me. the yale epidemiologist gregg gonsalves tweeted, “dr. birx, what the hell are you doing? what happened to you? your hiv colleagues are ashamed.” birx was accused of enabling an incompetent and mendacious president. the mortified look on her face at the press briefing when he suggested injecting disinfectant or using powerful light “inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way” became a meme, underscoring how much trump had compromised scientists. the public didn’t know what she was saying in private. birx confided to colleagues that she’d lost confidence in the c.d.c. she disparaged the agency’s hospital reports on covid, which relied on models, not hard data. a c.d.c. staffer told science that compiling precise totals daily in a pandemic was impossible. but hospitals quickly complied after birx said that supplies of remdesivir could be portioned out only to hospitals that provided inpatient covid data. in august, dr. scott atlas, a neuroradiologist, a fellow at stanford university’s hoover institution, and a fox news regular, joined the task force. he was adamant that children should return to school as was the american academy of pediatrics, which urged a “safe return” to schools in the fall, warning of learning deficits, physical or sexual abuse at home, and depression. that was a debate worth having, but most of atlas’s views on covid seemed reckless. he insisted that masks did little to stop the spread, and he advocated creating “herd immunity” by allowing the virus to be passed freely among people at lower risk. herd immunity is gained when roughly seventy per cent of a population has effective antibodies to the disease, through either infection or vaccination. once atlas got to the white house, trump stopped speaking to other health advisers. herd immunity could be achieved by doing nothing at all, which became the president’s unspoken policy. atlas encouraged trump and others to believe that the pandemic was waning. “his voice is really very welcome combatting some of the nonsense that comes out of fauci,” stephen moore, a white house economic adviser, reportedly said. (the white house denies that “the president, the white house, or anyone in the administration has pursued or advocated for a strategy of achieving herd immunity.”) birx and atlas had it out in the oval office, in front of trump. birx accused atlas of costing american lives with his unfounded theories. atlas cursed her. birx, who spent twenty eight years in the army, gave it right back. atlas said that young, asymptomatic people shouldn’t be tested, adding, “she just wants to lock them down and not let them live their lives.” they kept shouting at each other, but trump was undisturbed and didn’t take either side. “it’s all reality tv to him,” one of birx’s colleagues said. after the confrontation, birx demanded that pence remove atlas, but pence declined. the task force began to dissolve after atlas took a seat. when birx was working in africa, she and her chief epidemiologist, irum zaidi, had met with presidents and village elders across the continent, learning the value of personal diplomacy. the two scientists decided to take an american road trip together. the contagion had moved from the coasts to the heartland. in june, when the virus suddenly gripped texas, birx and zaidi travelled to dallas to meet with governor greg abbott. abbott’s dithering response to the pandemic had led to attacks by democrats who noted that the death rate soared when he lifted restrictions too soon and by republicans, who called him a tyrant for imposing any restrictions at all. at a press conference, birx urged texans to mask up, especially young people. “if they’re interacting with their parents and grandparents, they should wear a mask,” she said. “no one wants to pass the virus to others.” she praised abbott for closing bars, knowing that he was being pressured to fully open the economy. abbott soon issued a mask mandate. zaidi grew up in atlanta, and her father was a c.d.c. statistician. on vacations, they took long car trips, a passion passed along to zaidi. she loves to drive fast. as they were leaving dallas, a state trooper pulled her over. she’d been doing a hundred and ten. “little lady, what’s the hurry?” he asked. zaidi explained that they’d just met governor abbott, and new mexico’s governor was next. “surely you recognize dr. birx,” she said. the trooper let them off. soon after their visit to new mexico, governor michelle lujan grisham announced a hundred dollar fine for going maskless in public. birx and zaidi proceeded to arizona and met with governor doug ducey. birx explained that even a small increase in the percentage of positivity going from 3.5 to five per cent could spark an unmanageable crisis. ducey soon declared, “if you want to participate in any good or service in arizona, you’re going to wear a mask.” birx and zaidi racked up twenty five thousand miles as they crossed the country eight times, visiting forty three states, many more than once. they saw the rural areas and the cities, red america and blue america. they drove past cotton farms and soybean fields, but they also saw derelict oil rigs and abandoned factories, remnants of a vanishing industrial age. there were gleaming cities, bold and glassy, with construction cranes crowning the skyline, and broken towns, tumbling in decay, with all the promise bled out of them. the women, who got regular covid tests, established their own protocols. they cleaned rental cars and motel rooms with clorox wipes. in the morning, early, they’d pick up coffee and pastries at starbucks. lunch was often peanut butter spread on bread with a plastic knife. dinner was served at a drive through window. baristas and gas station attendants were useful informants of community outbreaks and served as indicators of local mask compliance. birx and zaidi met mayors and community organizers; they visited hospitals and nursing homes; they turned h.i.v. activists into covid activists. in atlanta, they urged officials to test migrants working on chicken farms. they visited more than thirty universities. those which conducted mandatory weekly testing of students had positivity rates below one per cent; at schools where only symptomatic people were tested, positivity rates were twelve to fifteen per cent. republican and democratic governors made the same complaint: many people wouldn’t listen as long as trump refused to set an example. one of the most effective governors birx and zaidi encountered was jim justice, of west virginia. he issued a mask mandate, and in press briefings he read out the names of west virginians who had died of covid. he urged residents to “be great, loving neighbors.” the state developed a plan to safely reopen schools by constantly assessing the level of risk in every county and presenting these data on a color coded map. “it’s something that every county and every state can do,” birx said. “west virginia represents exactly what we want to see across the country a commonsense approach based on the data.” a pandemic lays bare a society’s frailties. birx and zaidi saw a nation that was suffering from ill health even before covid attacked, where forty per cent of adults are obese, nearly half have cardiovascular disease, and one in thirteen has asthma. they visited reservations and met with native americans, who have been particularly ravaged by covid. the salt river pima maricopa indian community, in arizona, gave birx a mask inscribed with the salt river tribe’s shield. when north dakota recorded the nation’s highest rate of infection, birx met with the governor, doug burgum, and with local, state, and tribal officials. birx scolded them: “this is the least use of masks that we have seen in retail establishments of any place we have been.” she added, “it starts with the community, and the community deciding that it’s important for their children to be in school, the community deciding that it’s important not to infect the nursing home staff who are caring for their residents.” burgum eventually agreed to a mask mandate. in south dakota, governor kristi noem couldn’t find the time to meet with birx. for nearly six months, birx corralled politicians, hospital executives, and public health officials, often bringing such leaders together for the first time. she took charts and slides from state to state, promoting a simple, consistent message about masks, social distancing, transparency, and responsible leadership. she was the only federal official doing so. one day in october, birx and zaidi were eating lunch at a roadside stop in utah, beside the bonneville salt flats, where land speed records are often set. the salt stretched out like a frozen sea. they’d rented a blue jeep wrangler. “we have to go off road, for just a minute,” zaidi said. birx gazed at the great white emptiness. “as long as you don’t hit anybody,” she said. i asked dr. fauci about the global preparedness study calling america the nation best prepared for a pandemic. what happened? he emitted a despairing laugh and said, “we never got back to baseline” the point when the contagion had been reduced enough to allow contact tracing to minimize spread. “it could be the fact that we didn’t have a uniform strategy,” he went on. “it could be our own culture right now, of people not wanting to be told what to do. the guidelines say ‘don’t go to bars. wear a mask.’ and you look at the pictures in the newspaper and on tv and you see large crowds of mostly young people, not wearing masks.” fauci, who has led niaid through six administrations, has never seen this level of distrust and anger in the country. “political divisiveness doesn’t lend itself to having a coördinated, coöperative, collaborative response against a common enemy,” he said. “there is also this pushback in society against anything authoritative, and scientists are perceived as being authority, so that’s the reason i believe we have an anti science trend, which leads to an anti vaccine trend.” even with an effective vaccine or several of them social resistance could delay the longed for herd immunity. i asked fauci if he’d been threatened. “oh, my goodness,” he said. “harassing my wife and my children. it’s really despicable. it’s this dark web group of people who are ultra ultra ultra far right crazies. they somehow got the phone numbers of my children, they’ve tracked them where they work, they’ve harassed them with texts, some threatening, some obscene. we have gotten multiple death threats, my wife and i.” he sighed and said, “it is what it is.” “buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s going to be hard to get,” michael caputo warned, in a rambling facebook live event on september 13th. caputo is an assistant secretary of health and human services, and focusses on public affairs. he controls the flow of information from america’s public health establishment: the c.d.c., the f.d.a., and the n.i.h. trump appointed caputo to the post in april, when covid was out of control; competence and transparency were needed to restore public trust. caputo had no public health expertise, and he claimed that his best friend was the notorious political operative roger stone. evidently, all the president wanted caputo to do was reinforce his message that the virus wasn’t as dangerous as scientists claimed, and that the crisis was under control. caputo presided over interventions by h.h.s. that meddled with the c.d.c.’s guidelines apparently, to get case numbers down and stanch the flow of bad news. trump asked caputo to lead a campaign to “defeat despair,” which encouraged celebrities to endorse the administration’s laissez faire approach. to fund the campaign, caputo snatched three hundred million dollars from the c.d.c.’s budget. meanwhile, his science adviser, paul alexander, a part time professor at a canadian university, pushed an alternative plan: herd immunity. “it only comes about allowing the non high risk groups to expose themselves to the virus,” alexander wrote to caputo, in an e mail obtained by politico. “we want them infected.” caputo’s efforts met with resistance from fauci and others, and he felt under siege. in the facebook video, he was unshaven, sitting outside his house in buffalo. “there are scientists working for this government who do not want america to get better,” he said. “it must be all bad news from now until the election.” he stared into space. “this is war. joe biden is not going to concede. the antifa attacks, the murders that have happened, the rallies that have turned into violence this is all practice.” such embattled thoughts were shared by adam fox. a powerfully built man with a trim brown beard and a square face, he helped lead a militia called the michigan three percenters a reference to their belief that only three per cent of american colonists took up arms against britain in the revolutionary war. in a strip mall in grand rapids, a shop called the vac shack sells and services vacuum cleaners. fox, a former employee, had been kicked out of his girlfriend’s house and was homeless. the shop’s owner let fox sleep in the basement. that’s where he allegedly began plotting to kidnap gretchen whitmer, michigan’s governor, who had enforced tough lockdown measures. in june, at a gun rights rally in lansing, fox met with members of a militia, the wolverine watchmen, who planned to kill police officers. they were infuriated by whitmer’s covid restrictions, but, even before the pandemic, they’d been prone to anger. “i’m sick of being robbed and enslaved by the state,” one of the conspirators complained, after receiving a ticket for driving without a license. fox allegedly told the watchmen that he was recruiting for an operation targeting the state capitol. he needed two hundred men to storm the building and abduct politicians, including whitmer, whom fox called a “tyrant bitch.” although the plotters were mostly unemployed or in low paying jobs, they spent thousands of dollars on a taser and night vision goggles, and were planning to spend thousands more on explosives. they were plainly inspired by trump’s disparaging of whitmer for shutting down her state. “liberate michigan!” the president had once tweeted. the f.b.i. learned of the scheme, and arrested the conspirators in october. in a statement, whitmer singled out trump, who, in a recent debate with biden, had refused to explicitly condemn right wing, white supremacist violence. “words matter,” she said. “when our leaders meet with and encourage domestic terrorists, they legitimize their actions and they are complicit.” trump tweeted that “my justice department and federal law enforcement” had foiled the plot, adding, “rather than say thank you, she calls me a white supremacist.” he commanded whitmer, “open up your state.” on michael caputo’s facebook video, he sighed deeply. “i don’t like being alone in washington,” he said. “the shadows on the ceiling in my apartment, there alone, those shadows are so long.” soon afterward, he went on medical leave. on september 26th, eight days after the death of supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg, trump nominated her successor, amy coney barrett, in a white house ceremony. the reverend john jenkins, the president of the university of notre dame, where barrett had taught law, recalled, “we were required to wear a mask at entry and, after going through security, were immediately taken to a room and administered a nasal swab for a covid test.” once a negative result came back, guests could remove their masks. “i assumed that we could trust the white house health protocols,” jenkins said. he regretted his decision: “i unwittingly allowed myself to be swept up very publicly into the image of a white house that sometimes seemed to disregard scientific evidence and minimize the threat of the pandemic.” guests were ushered to the rose garden, where there were two hundred assigned seats. barrett spoke briefly. “movement conservatives were very happy,” mike lee, the republican senator from utah, recalled. friends who hadn’t seen one another for months reunited, he said, which “added to the jovial atmosphere.” afterward, dozens gathered in the diplomatic reception room to meet the barrett family. that day, seven hundred and sixty nine american deaths from covid were recorded down from the spring peak, on april 15th, of twenty seven hundred and fifty two. despite the absence of miracle drugs, the death rate for hospitalized patients had fallen significantly. in part, this was because the average age of patients was lower, but the improved chances of survival were also the result of flattening the curve, which gave doctors and scientists the time to devise more effective treatments, such as proning. the infection rate, however, was harder to slow. the number of cases per day, which had topped seventy five thousand in mid july, had faded a bit in the late summer, but it was again rounding upward. after months of being more careful, americans had apparently let down their guard. the white house refused to say when the president had last been tested before the rose garden event. he had just made multiple campaign stops, in florida, georgia, and virginia. more than a dozen guests including reverend jenkins, senator lee, the former new jersey governor chris christie, and the former presidential adviser kellyanne conway soon tested positive. without knowing trump’s testing history, no one can say when he contracted the disease or how many people he might have infected. the full extent of the rose garden cluster will never be known. fauci labelled it a superspreader event. despite his germophobia, trump is proud of his immune system, boasting on multiple occasions that he never gets the flu. but covid hit him hard. according to new york, he told a confidant, “i could be one of the diers.” a friend from the real estate world, stanley chera, had died from it. “he went to the hospital, he calls me up,” trump recounted after chera’s death. “he goes, ‘i tested positive.’ i said, ‘well, what are you going to do?’ he said, ‘i’m going to the hospital. i’ll call you tomorrow.’ he didn’t call.” vanity fair reported that trump developed heart palpitations. he asked aides, “am i going out like stan chera?” hospitals are often portals to the graveyard, and that has been especially true during the pandemic. but trump, who received a series of cutting edge therapies, including monoclonal antibodies, was ready to return to the white house after three days. according to the times, he considered hobbling out of the hospital and then yanking open his shirt to reveal a superman logo. in the event, he saved his drama for the moment he stood again on the truman balcony and ripped off his surgical mask. “don’t be afraid of covid,” he tweeted afterward. “don’t let it dominate your life.” after amy klobuchar dropped out of the presidential race, she was on biden’s shortlist for his running mate. george floyd’s death put an end to that. she had begun her career twenty years earlier as the district attorney in minneapolis, earning a reputation for being tough on crime but light on police misconduct. on june 18th, she asked biden to take her name off his list and urged him to select a woman of color as his running mate. that day, she learned that her ninety two year old father, jim klobuchar, had covid. he was a retired newspaper columnist, and known to everyone in minneapolis, especially cops and bartenders. full of adventure, he was also often full of alcohol. when amy was a young lawyer, her father was arrested for drunk driving. in a closed hearing, she encouraged him to take responsibility and plead guilty. he did so, and finally got sober. now this vigorous old man, so troubled and so beloved, had covid and alzheimer’s. when klobuchar visited him, at an assisted living facility, they were separated by a window, and she believed that it would be her final glimpse of him alive. he recognized her, but couldn’t understand why they had to remain separated. he sang to her: “happy days are here again.” he has since recovered. among the many awful legacies that covid will leave, one blessing is that our understanding of coronaviruses, and the tools to counter them, has been transformed. much of that progress will be because of barney graham, jason mclellan, and other scientists who have spent their careers building to this moment. there has never been such an enormous, worldwide scientific effort so intently focussed on a single disease. more than two hundred vaccines are in various stages of development. on december 11th, the f.d.a. granted its first emergency use authorization for a covid vaccine. created by pfizer, in partnership with the german firm biontech, it uses the modified protein that graham and mclellan designed. in its third and final human trial, it was deemed ninety five per cent effective. giant quantities of the vaccine had been prepared in advance of f.d.a. approval. “our goal is more than a billion doses by the end of 2021,” philip dormitzer, pfizer’s chief scientific officer for viral vaccines, told me. the first employee at u.va.’s hospital to get the pfizer inoculation was ebony hilton. operation warp speed, the government initiative to accelerate vaccine development, may prove to be the administration’s most notable success in the pandemic. moderna’s vaccine secured approval next. its formulation proved to be 94.1 per cent effective in preventing infection and, so far, it has been a hundred per cent effective in preventing serious disease. graham is happy that he chose to work with moderna. in 2016, his lab developed a vaccine for zika, a new virus that caused birth defects. his department did everything itself: “we developed the construct, we made the dna, we did phase i clinical trials, and then we developed the regulatory apparatus to take it into central and south america and the caribbean, to test it for efficacy.” the effort nearly broke the staff. moderna was an ideal partner for the covid project, graham told me. its messenger rna vector was far more potent than the dna vaccine that graham’s lab had been using. in another major development, eli lilly recently received an emergency use authorization for a monoclonal antibody that is also based on the spike protein that graham and mclellan designed. it is similar to the treatment that president trump received when he contracted covid. graham had been in his home office, in rockville, maryland, when he got a call telling him that the pfizer vaccine was breathtakingly effective far better than could have been hoped for. “it was just hard to imagine,” he told me. he walked into the kitchen to share the news with his wife. their son and grandchildren were visiting. “i told cynthia, ‘it’s working.’ i could barely get the words out. then i just had to go back into my study, because i had this major relief. all that had been built up over those ten months just came out.” he sat at his desk and wept. his family gathered around him. he hadn’t cried that hard since his father died. graham and his colleagues will not become rich from their creation: intellectual property royalties will go to the federal government. yet he feels amply rewarded. “almost every aspect of my life has come together in this outbreak,” he told me. “the work on enhanced disease, the work on rsv structure, the work on coronavirus and pandemic preparedness, along with all the things i learned and experienced about racial issues in this country. it feels like some kind of destiny.” more than a thousand health care workers have died while taking care of covid patients. nurses are the most likely to perish, as they spend the most time with patients. on june 29th, bellevue held a ceremony to memorialize lost comrades. staff members gathered in a garden facing first avenue to plant seven cherry trees in their honor. as the coronavirus withdrew from bellevue, it left perplexity behind. why did death rates decline? had face masks diminished the viral loads transmitted to infected people? nate link thinks that therapeutic treatments such as remdesivir have been helpful. remdesivir cuts mortality by seventy per cent in patients on low levels of oxygen, though it has no impact on people on ventilators. amit uppal told me that the hospital has improved at managing covid. “we now understand the potential courses of the disease,” he said. doctors have become more skilled at assessing who requires a ventilator, who might be stabilized with oxygen, who needs blood thinning medication. then again, the main factor behind superior outcomes may be that patients now tend to be younger. when a patient is discharged, the event offers a rare moment for the staff to celebrate. on august 4th, a beaming chris rogan, twenty nine years old, was wheeled by his wife, crystal, through a gantlet of cheering health care workers, in scrubs and masks. there were balloons and bouquets. after so much death, a miracle had occurred. rogan was an account manager for a health insurance firm in midtown. crystal was a teaching assistant. in late march, he developed a low grade fever and stomach discomfort, but he wasn’t coughing. his doctor said that he probably had the flu. rogan grew increasingly lethargic. he developed pneumonia. an ambulance took him to metropolitan hospital, on the upper east side. he still felt o.k., even when his oxygen level fell to sixty four per cent. an hour after he checked in, he couldn’t breathe. he was placed in a medically induced coma and intubated for nine days. during that time, the ventilator clogged and rogan’s heart stopped for three minutes. when he was brought back to consciousness, a doctor asked, “did you see anything while you were dead?” “no,” rogan said. “i don’t even remember being resuscitated.” he began experiencing what hospital staffers told him was i.c.u. psychosis. he told crystal that he’d been stabbed as a child. he began conversing with god. just before he was intubated again, on april 15th, he felt certain that he would die in the hospital. he didn’t wake up for sixty one days. during that time, he was transferred to bellevue, which was better equipped to handle him. it’s a mistake to think that a patient in a coma is totally unaware. rogan swam in and out of near consciousness. when his doctor came in, he tried to talk to him: “why am i awake? why can’t i move?” he couldn’t sleep, because his eyes were partly open. “it’s like being buried alive,” he told me. his tenth wedding anniversary passed. sometimes he heard crystal’s voice on video chat. “i hear you,” he’d say, but she couldn’t hear him. “i feel the tube down my throat, tell them to take me off the vent.” a machine kept pumping oxygen into his lungs: psht! psht! psht! the sound pounded in his head. he would dream that he had left the hospital, then wake to find himself still there, the ventilator pumping away. “it was fucking torture,” he said. he developed internal bleeding. clots formed in his legs. he told god that he didn’t want to die that he had too much left to do. god assured him that he was going to make it. crystal was charged with making choices for rogan’s care. the hardest one was the decision to amputate his right leg. it took three days to get him stable enough to perform the operation, which had to be done at his bedside, because he was too fragile to move. the doctors performed a guillotine amputation, just below the knee. eight days later, they had to take off the knee. rogan doesn’t remember any of that. some days, he is elated to be alive; other times, he asks himself, “what kind of quality of life is this?” whether or not it was i.c.u. psychosis, he’s clung to the experience of talking with god. when he emerged from the coma, he couldn’t move his arms, but now his right hand is functional. after several weeks of rehab, he can walk a bit with a prosthetic leg. when he fell ill, there were only a hundred and fifty thousand cases in the u.s. when he left the hospital, there were more than four million. the death toll kept mounting, surpassing three hundred thousand at year’s end. some victims were famous. the playwright terrence mcnally was one of the first. the virus also killed charley pride, the first black singer in the country music hall of fame, and tom seaver, one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history. eighty per cent of fatalities have been in people aged sixty five or older, and most victims are male. it’s been strange to find myself in the vulnerable population. i’m a year younger than trump, so his adventure with covid was of considerable interest to me. if i get ill, i’m not likely to receive the kind of treatment the president did, but i’m in better physical condition, despite a bout of cancer. my wife, though, has compromised lungs. even before the coronavirus put a target on our age group, mortality was much on my mind. sometimes i’m dumbstruck by how long i’ve lived; when i’m filling out a form on the internet, and i come to a drop down menu for year of birth, the years fly by, past the loss of parents and friends, past wars and assassinations, past presidential administrations. on september 9th, our grandchild gioia was born. she is the dearest creature. we stare into each other’s eyes in wonder. even in this intimate moment, though, the menace of contagion is present: we are more likely to infect the people we love than anyone else. deborah birx has recalled that, in 1918, her grandmother, aged eleven, brought the flu home from school to her mother, who died of it. “i can tell you, my grandmother lived with that for eighty eight years,” she said. even before the election, matt and yen pottinger had decided that they were tired of washington. he was burned out on the task force, which had drifted into irrelevance as the administration embraced magical thinking. they drove west, looking for a new place to live, and settled on a ski town in utah. matt will join yen there once he wraps up his job in washington. pottinger’s white house experience has made him acutely aware of what he calls “the fading art of leadership.” it’s not a failure of one party or another; it’s more of a generational decline of good judgment. “the élites think it’s all about expertise,” he said. it’s important to have experts, but they aren’t always right: they can be “hampered by their own orthodoxies, their own egos, their own narrow approach to the world.” pottinger went on, “you need broad minded leaders who know how to hold people accountable, who know how to delegate, who know a good chain of command, and know how to make hard judgments.” at the end of october, before returning to d.c., pottinger went on a trail ride in the wasatch range. as it happened, birx was in salt lake city. utah had just hit a record number of new cases. on the ride, an alarm sounded on pottinger’s cell phone in the saddlebag. it was an alert: “almost every single county is a high transmission area. hospitals are nearly overwhelmed. by public health order, masks are required in high transmission areas.” pottinger said to himself, “debi must have met with the governor.” covid has been hard on little africa. “some of our church members have passed, and quite a few of our friends,” mary hilton, ebony’s mother, told me recently. “we just buried one yesterday. they’re dropping everywhere. it’s so scary.” a cousin is in the hospital. “one out of eight hundred black americans who were alive in january is now dead,” hilton told me. “there would be another twenty thousand alive if they died at the same rate as caucasians.” she added, “if i can just get my immediate family through this year alive, we will have succeeded.” she and two colleagues have written a letter to the congressional black caucus proposing the creation of a federal department of equity, to address the practices that have led to such disparate health outcomes. infected people keep showing up at u.va.’s hospital at a dismaying pace. hilton recently attended the hospital’s first lung transplant for a covid patient. he survived. lately, more young people, including children, have populated the covid wards. hospitals and clinics all over the country have been struggling financially, and many health care workers, including hilton, have taken pay cuts. thanksgiving in little africa is usually a giant family reunion. everyone comes home. there’s one street where practically every house belongs to someone in hilton’s family; people eat turkey in one house and dessert in another. hilton hasn’t seen her family for ten months. she spent thanksgiving alone in charlottesville, with her dogs. thanksgiving was deborah birx’s first day off in months. she and her husband have a house in washington, d.c., and her daughter’s family lives in nearby potomac, maryland. during the pandemic, they have been a pod. recently, birx bought another house, in delaware, and after thanksgiving she, her husband, and her daughter’s family spent the weekend there. her access to the president had been cut off since the summer, and, with that, her ability to influence policy. she had become a lightning rod for the administration’s policies. then, in december, a news report revealed that she had travelled over the thanksgiving weekend, counter to the c.d.c.’s recommendation. she was plunged into a cold bath of schadenfreude. old photographs resurfaced online, making it look as if she were currently attending christmas parties. birx indicated that she might soon leave government service. austin bills itself as the “live music capital of the world,” but the bars and dance halls are largely closed. threadgill’s, the roadhouse where janis joplin got her start, is being torn down. the clubs on sixth street, austin’s answer to bourbon street, haven’t been open for months. a band i play in has performed in many of them, but for the past several years we had a regular gig at the skylark lounge, a shack tucked behind an auto body shop. johnny latouf runs the place with his ex wife, mary. it’s been shut since march 15th. “all small businesses have been affected, but music venues around the country were already in a struggle,” johnny told me. he’s had to let go his ten employees including three family members. that’s only part of the damage. “when the musicians get laid off and the bands disperse and go their separate ways, then you’ve actually broken up their business.” he added, “covid killed off more than people with preëxisting conditions. lots of businesses have preëxisting conditions.” lavelle white, born in 1929, was still singing the blues at skylark until the doors closed. “some of our greater musicians are older, because it takes a lifetime to master the craft,” johnny said. skylark was a mixing bowl where younger musicians learned from their elders. “now that pathway is broken.” when congress passed the cares act, which included money to support small businesses, local bars were not a priority. “there’s no money,” johnny said wells fargo told him. he helps several older musicians with groceries, but he doesn’t know how many in that crowd will ever return. some have died from covid. two qualities determine success or failure in dealing with the covid contagion. one is experience. some places that had been seared by past diseases applied those lessons to the current pandemic. vietnam, taiwan, and hong kong had been touched by sars. saudi arabia has done better than many countries, perhaps because of its history with mers (and the fact that many women routinely wear facial coverings). africa has a surprisingly low infection rate. the continent’s younger demographic has helped, but it is also likely that south africa’s experience with h.i.v./aids, and the struggle of other african countries with ebola, have schooled the continent in the mortal danger of ignoring medical advice. the other quality is leadership. nations and states that have done relatively well during this crisis have been led by strong, compassionate, decisive leaders who speak candidly with their constituents. in vermont, governor phil scott, a republican, closed the state early, and reopened cautiously, keeping the number of cases and the death toll low. “this should be the model for the country,” fauci told state leaders, in september. if the national fatality rate were the same as vermont’s, some two hundred and fifty thousand americans would still be alive. granted, vermont has fewer than a million people, but so does south dakota, which was topping a thousand cases a day in november. scott ordered a statewide shutdown in march, which caused an immediate economic contraction. governor noem opposed mandates of any sort, betting that south dakotans would act in their best interests while keeping the economy afloat. vermont’s economy has recovered, with an unemployment rate of 3.2 per cent nearly the same as south dakota’s. but south dakota has seen twelve times as many deaths. in michigan, the state’s chief medical officer, joneigh khaldun, is a black emergency room doctor. “she was one of the first to look at the demographics of covid and highlight that we have a real racial disparity here,” governor whitmer told me. “fourteen per cent of our population is black, as were forty per cent of the early deaths.” the state launched an aggressive outreach to black communities. by august, the rates of both cases and fatalities for blacks were the same as or lower than those for whites. the vast differences in outcomes among the states underscore the absence of a national plan. the u.s. accounts for a fifth of the world’s covid deaths, despite having only four per cent of the population. in august, the pew research center surveyed people from fourteen advanced countries to see how they viewed the world during the pandemic. ninety five per cent of danish respondents said that their country had handled the crisis capably. in australia, the figure was ninety four per cent. the u.s. and the u.k. were the only countries where a majority believed otherwise. in denmark, seventy two per cent said that the country has become more unified since the contagion emerged. eighteen per cent of americans felt this way. on march 16th, trump issued nationwide guidelines for closing schools, shutting down bars and restaurants, and limiting unnecessary travel and social gatherings. but that day marked a turning point. in his conversation with governors, he abandoned any effort to coalesce a national plan, and his administration began undercutting governors’ attempts to acquire p.p.e. then, on april 3rd, trump undermined the c.d.c.’s guidance on wearing masks: “you don’t have to do it. i’m choosing not to do it. but some people may want to do it.” trump, by his words and his example, became not a leader but a saboteur. he subverted his health agencies by installing political operatives who meddled with the science and suppressed the truth. his crowded, unmasked political rallies were reckless acts of effrontery. in his tulsa speech, he said that he’d asked his health officials to “slow the testing down” impeding data collection just to make his administration look better. when the inevitable happened, and he contracted the disease, he almost certainly spread it. every guest at the barrett reception tested negative for the virus before entering. trump may well have been the superspreader at the rose garden event. the president could have tried to bring the country together. in the press conference where he said that he wouldn’t wear a mask, he praised the efforts of the democratic governors of new york and new jersey; he expressed sympathy for michiganders, who were “getting hit very, very hard.” he announced federal efforts to aid new york city. “america is engaged in a historic battle to safeguard the lives of our citizens,” he said. “our greatest weapon is the discipline and determination of every citizen to stay at home and stay healthy.” the man who said those words might have been the president the country needed. but he was not that man. he campaigned against biden, but mainly he campaigned against the disease. “when the year started, he appeared unbeatable,” senator lee told me. “my democratic colleagues were discouraged about their chances. by the end of the impeachment trial, when we began hearing about the virus, we were not sure it would be a big deal. but it put an end to one of the things the president is best at those big rallies.” when trump finally resumed them, defying medical advice, his fury was volcanic. “people are tired of hearing fauci and all these idiots,” he grumbled on october 19th, when the number of new cases exceeded sixty five thousand. “covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid!” he said at a rally in north carolina, five days later. “we’re doing great. our numbers are incredible.” that day, nearly eighty thousand new cases were reported, overshadowing the highest levels of the summer. in omaha, on october 27th, he said of covid, “i’m here, right? . . . i had it.” hospitalizations were up forty six per cent that month. he ignored the fever sweeping through the mountain west and the great plains trump country. his slogan was both cynical and fatuous: “if i can get better, anybody can get better.” infections often rose in counties where trump held a rally. the surge in infections and deaths mocked his assertions that we were “rounding the turn.” the disease stalked him; it encircled him. on october 25th, trump’s chief of staff, mark meadows, declared, “we are not going to control the pandemic.” the administration had given up. covid couldn’t kill donald trump, but it could defeat him. five days before the election, biden spoke at a drive in rally in tampa. “so much suffering, so much loss,” he said. “donald trump has waved the white flag, abandoned our families, and surrendered to the virus.” honking cars punctuated his remarks. that day, new confirmed cases topped ninety thousand. the next day, fauci said, “all the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. you could not possibly be positioned more poorly.” halloween night in austin was beautiful, graced with a blue moon. my wife and i set out a bowl of chocolate bars and dum dums, but there were scarcely any trick or treaters. as dusk settled over the city, when our neighborhood would normally be filled with fairies and vampires, a deer galloped down the street. america is full of strivers whose dreams seem just out of reach. iris meda was one of them. she had a big smile but sad eyes. she grew up in harlem, the oldest of six children. her mother was a domestic who was home only one day a week; her stepfather was a longshoreman. meda’s first bed was an ironing board. for most of her childhood, she was the family caretaker, walking her siblings to school before she went herself. like many of her high school friends, she dropped out after a bout of depression. she married and had two daughters. meda eventually got a g.e.d. and surprised herself by graduating at the top of her class from bronx community college. in 1984, she earned a nursing degree from city college. medicine fascinated her. she would go home and talk about watching a surgeon massage a patient’s heart. she was drawn to those who were wounded or hurting people who felt that the world wasn’t big enough for them. for years, she was a nurse at the rikers island jail. she cared about the prisoners, and they knew it. when her husband was transferred to dallas, she gave notice, and on her last day the inmates clapped her out. “she was always looking for an underdog to pull up, because she was an underdog,” her daughter, selene meda schlamel, said. meda retired in january, after two years in the north texas job corps. she had been in charge of on site care, meaning that she was on call nights and weekends, and when she turned seventy she decided that she’d had enough. she and selene had big plans. meda wanted to travel; she wanted to ride in a convertible for the first time; she talked about writing a book. “in march, it all came to a screeching halt,” selene told me. her mother was still a proud new yorker, so she spent a lot of time in front of the tv watching dr. fauci and governor cuomo. “her knowledge of science kept her ahead of the news reports,” selene said. meda, having worked in nursing homes, hospitals, and jails, knew that covid would be devastating for people who were confined, and for those who took care of them. meda couldn’t stand being idle during the crisis. “she wanted to teach,” selene said. “she wanted to encourage younger nurses to continue their education. she wanted them to reach their full potential in a way she almost didn’t.” meda successfully applied for a job at collin college, in allen, texas. at the time, courses were being offered virtually, and meda imagined that she would be teaching online in the fall. when the semester began, she learned that many classes were in person. according to the local npr station, the college’s president, h. neil matkin, had made his views of the virus known in an e mail to trustees: “the effects of this pandemic have been blown utterly out of proportion across our nation.” meda hoped to be in a large classroom where students could be widely spaced, but she was assigned to teach a lab for a nurse’s aide course. there was no social distancing. on october 2nd, a student was coughing and sneezing, complaining of allergies. that day, trump announced that he had covid. meda was repulsed when he insisted on taking a car ride to wave at his supporters outside the hospital, with secret service agents in the car with him. meda texted selene, “he’s putting all those people at risk just for a photo.” on october 7th, meda learned that the student had tested positive. the college chose to continue in person classes even after one student died. by this time, trump was out of the hospital, saying he felt “better than twenty years ago.” meda became feverish on october 12th. two days later, she tested positive and went to the e.r., but her oxygen level was not low enough for her to be admitted. on october 17th, selene took her mom back to the hospital. meda was seriously ill, but the staff, worried about covid, kept her waiting outside, slumped over on a bench in the e.r. drive through. when the triage nurse finally waved meda in, selene wasn’t permitted to join her, because she had been exposed. meda’s oxygen level was now so low that she couldn’t speak. selene didn’t see her again for thirty days. during that period, meda was able to speak only once on the phone. most days, she texted with selene. one day, she asked selene to call a nurse who she thought was doing an excellent job. “she’s having a hard day,” meda texted. she worried about her students and wondered if anyone else had caught the virus. (none showed symptoms.) the disease progressed inexorably. selene could tell that doctors were doing everything they could, but her mother’s lungs wouldn’t rebound. selene wondered if things would be turning out differently had her mother received treatment earlier. on november 14th, selene got a call advising that her mother’s blood pressure was plummeting. “based on how she’s declining, how long do we have?” selene asked, thinking that she would pick up her father, so that he could say goodbye. “a couple hours,” the doctor said. ten minutes later, a nurse called and said, “get here now.” “they put me in a helmet,” selene recalled. “there was a plastic flap that closed around my neck. inside the helmet there was a fan at the top that blew air down, so that any air that got in would be flushed away. and they put a gown on me, and double gloves, and they let me go in and say goodbye to her. that was the biggest shock, to see her, and to see how she looked. she was twice her size, because she was swollen from steroids. her tongue was swollen and hanging out the side of her mouth because she was on the ventilator she’d been intubated. they had to brace her head to keep it straight on the pillow, and they had tape around her mouth to keep the tube in. i’ll never forget it. but i think the thing that will haunt me is the smell. it’s like the smell of decay, like she had already started to die. “the thing that made it so hard to see that was to juxtapose it against president trump out there, saying he felt like he was twenty eight years old again and he never felt better. so how could the same thing that did this to her, how could someone ever take it for granted that this was nothing, you have nothing to be afraid of?” selene gathered her mother in her arms as the machines went silent. my wife and i voted early, in a drop off location in travis county, where ninety seven per cent of eligible voters were registered. it was a new way of voting swift, efficient, and rather exhilarating. and yet the vote came amid a crescendo of bad news. the week before november 3rd, the country added half a million new covid cases, reaching record highs in half the states. the stock market had its worst week since the swan dive in march. eight million americans had fallen into poverty since the summer. at least five members of vice president pence’s staff had been infected with covid, as the virus continued to roam the white house. in texas, as in many republican states, there were naked attempts to suppress the vote. governor abbott restricted the number of drop off sites to one per county, including in harris county, which has more than four million people. the attorney general, ken paxton, went to court to block the enforcement of a mask requirement at the polls, endangering voters as well as poll workers, who tend to be older. for the election, abbott readied a thousand national guard troops in major texas cities, in anticipation of violence. store owners in dallas boarded up their windows, like beach communities awaiting a hurricane. but there was no violence in texas on election day. voting is a simple act, and an act of faith. it is a pledge of allegiance to the future of the country. across america, people waited in long lines to vote despite the disease, despite attempts to discredit or invalidate their vote, despite postal delays, despite russian or iranian meddling, despite warnings from the white house that the president would not go quietly if he lost. they voted as if their country depended on it. ♦ an earlier version of this piece mischaracterized the cardiac symptoms doctors were seeing in covid patients. sections more © 2025 condé nast. all rights reserved. the new yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our affiliate partnerships with retailers. the material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of condé nast. ad choices

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supported by times insider james barron, who has lived in the city for decades and since 2021 has written the new york today newsletter, shared how he finds his characteristic quirky tales. by sarah bahr this may come as a surprise, but james barron, despite being a font of quirky, classic new york tales, is not, in fact, a lifelong new yorker. some city purists may scoff, but mr. barron has made up for his first 22 years by spending the last 40 some finding the stories that even born and raised new yorkers may never have heard. there was the time, for instance, that he went to see “carmen” at the metropolitan opera and was so captivated by the cars and trucks that crisscrossed the stage that he just had to know how they worked. or the morning he saw an ancient crown victoria taxi on the street and set out to track down what was then the oldest cab still carrying passengers. or hearing about   then, visiting   the city’s oldest private dwelling. “i’m thinking about, ‘what are the things new yorkers care about?’” said mr. barron, who has written the new york today newsletter, a weekday roundup of news stories and only in new york tales, since 2021. mr. barron has worked for the new york times for more than four decades. he joined the paper as a copy boy the week after he graduated from princeton university in 1977; it was the job that prompted his move to new york. aside from a few years reporting from albany, long island and detroit, he’s always covered   and resided in   new york city. in a phone conversation from his home office on manhattan’s upper west side, he shared with me where he finds his ideas, what he enjoys about his assignment and a few of his favorite reporting experiences. these are edited excerpts. you’ve been covering new york for more than four decades. what keeps you excited about the city? there’s so much here! i’ve had a long and lucky career, with experiences ranging from doing breaking news stories, which get you familiar with where things are and who’s in power, to features, like cooking alongside the chef daniel boulud. when they say there are 8 million stories in the naked city, i have to believe it’s true.

 forgot password? james barron, who has lived in the city for decades and since 2021 has written the new york today newsletter, shared how he finds his characteristic quirky tales. this may come as a surprise, but james barron, despite being a font of quirky, classic new york tales, is not, in fact, a lifelong new yorker.