Planning the route for a grocery run on Manhattan’s east side

Pandemic Praxis

April 2020, with Dinah Gumns for The Radavist

As the coronavirus took hold in New York, volunteers across the city joined mutual aid efforts to help those in need. Self-organized and focused on direct action, mutual aid groups aim to make a difference quickly, and bikes are often essential to their work.

At the peak of the crisis in April, I spent several days biking the city with Dinah Gumns, documenting her work as a volunteer courier. Infections and deaths were spiking, protective equipment was in short supply, and many New Yorkers needed food and help with shopping. Among the mutual aid groups responding to these needs, #NYCPPE sourced medical-grade masks and delivered them directly to verified healthcare workers. Corona Courier coordinated shopping and contactless deliveries for at-risk community members. And nonprofit Make The Road New York provided food assistance, with many deliveries made by their volunteer Bike Brigade. Dinah logged hundreds of miles on deliveries for these groups, crisscrossing a city transformed by the pandemic.

Bicycles were also at the center of discussions related to equity for the city's delivery workers and the use of public space, to which the pandemic brought renewed attention. Traffic declined dramatically with the city's closure, and ordinarily busy and dangerous streets were left wide open to bikes. The city would create "open streets" and outdoor dining programs, cycling increased significantly, and New Yorkers expressed their gratitude to delivery workers. But vehicles would return as the pandemic eased, and the year would end as one of the city's worst for traffic safety in recent history. Delivery workers continued to suffer poor and unsafe working conditions and began to organize to demand better. Whether the lessons of the pandemic will lead to meaningful change remains to be seen.

My photographs accompanied Dinah's first-person account for The Radavist.

Dinah prepares deliveries for #NYCPPE, a self-organized group that sourced masks and coordinated their last-mile delivery to verified front-line healthcare workers

Waiting on a light in the Lower East Side, which was shuttered and empty on a Friday morning

Delivering PPE at a hotel in Midtown. Hotels -- empty due to the pandemic -- housed healthcare workers who had traveled from around the country to work in city hospitals at the peak of the crisis.

Xin Liu, an artist and engineer, coordinated deliveries for #NYCPPE

Delivering medication in Harlem. Mutual aid groups made deliveries for community members who were at particular risk for infection and attempting to minimize their contact with the outside.

Biking down 5th Avenue during rush hour. The city's shutdown reduced traffic to such an extent that usually busy avenues were empty save for buses, cyclists, and the occasional taxi.

Approaching an ambulance in the Lower East Side. The early months of the pandemic were marked by sirens, and ambulances were a constant presence while making deliveries.

A grocery line in Brooklyn. Mutual aid groups helped vulnerable community members avoid waits in line and potential exposure inside stores.

Canal Street, shuttered and empty on a Saturday afternoon

Biking past a mobile morgue -- a grim but common sight at the peak of the pandemic -- outside a hospital in Brooklyn

Adding flowers to Robyn Hightman's Ghost Bike on 6th Avenue. Robyn -- a beloved member of the cycling community -- was struck and killed by a truck here in 2019, the city's deadliest year for cyclists since 2000.

Dinah on a delivery run through Manhattan's west side