After a month of quarantine, Norwood residents are adapting to “life in the COVID-19 zone”, as seen in this series of photos taken on Monday, Apr. 20.

 

While many businesses remained open, the lack of crowds on a weekday in April still seemed strange, but signs on shuttered businesses, in car windows, and writing on the sidewalk tells the real story of the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020.

 

Hospital staff and paramedics were shown plenty of love and appreciation from the windows of the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore.

While most residents wore masks in public, as required across the State, and while masks were seen on display in at least one store-front, some people were still not adhering to the State Department of Health’s recommended six feet social distancing rule.

 

Customers visiting Chase Bank on Jerome Avenue were all wearing face masks, even the man holding the door for customers in the hope of receiving some change. However, they were not all six feet apart.

 

Despite the statewide PAUSE order, some workers were busy putting the finishing touches to a new City MD clinic at the former site of a now-shuttered fruit stand at Jerome Avenue and East Gun Hill Road.

 

Signs and banners tell the story of businesses that have been shuttered or scaled down, presumably in an effort to cut costs, along Jerome Avenue. Residents are left to wonder if they will ever re-open.

 

Signs on the window of Foodtown on East 204th Street were offering deals on grapes and broccoli, as well as guidance on how to judge a distance of six feet in order to meet the proper social distancing requirements.

 

Staffers at Montefiore Hospital at East 210th Street wrote colorful messages of support and encouragement for their fellow workers on the sidewalk outside the hospital as others looked on and read them.

 

Staff at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore were greeted with a colorful message on the sidewalk, showing thanks for the difficult job they do every day on Monday, Apr. 20, 2020.

 

Messages of hope and encouragement for front line staff lined the wall to Montefiore Hospital’s emergency room entrance on Bainbridge Avenue.

 

The Double A Super Deli on East 204th Street was one of few stores advertising face masks. They even fitted one mask on a mannequin in the front window to display it.

 

One driver had his windshield protector doubling as a bat-signal at a time when Gotham City could really use a Batman.