COVID-19 in the New York suburbs has its perks and its quirks, as locals rage against lockdown
Living in the New York suburbs comes without the excitement of the city but during COVID-19 subversive locals are making their thoughts and feelings known in their own way.
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We often talk at home about how different our lives in New York would be if we lived in the city.
For a number of reasons — lack of a trust fund and the spatial and schooling needs of two big teenagers — we settled in Westchester County after a brief and squished stint on the Upper West Side.
As nice as it is in our small leafy town, there’s no denying it’s somewhat underwhelming as a global destination compared to the Big Apple, 25 miles (40km) to our south.
Westchester is where Wall Street brokers and, it’s whispered, mafia types warehouse their families in magnificent homes, well away from their places of work.
There’s also a healthy population of generation-deep “townies” in our working-class neighbourhood, which houses a lot of gardeners and housekeepers who service the sprawling estates nearby.
Fair to say, being a 35-minute train ride from the world COVID epicentre was a blessing that we recognised as mass graves were dug in the city to cope with the horrific daily death toll. Even now, with the worst of the crisis allegedly “over”, more than double Australia’s total death toll dies in New York each day. So living in the ‘burbs has had its pluses.
Still, part of you can’t help but yearn for more of the world-famous NYC action.
So we experienced a little thrill when we learned that our sleepy little village had a truly badass moment to rival the rollicking Prohibition era tales of the city’s infamous speak-easies and sly grog shops.
Uncle Henry’s is a station-side dive bar with great fast food, surly service and a long mahogany bar lined with gruff locals who don’t take kindly to “outsiders”.
And, it turns out, they don’t much like being told what to do by their fancy governor, either.
In bold defiance of strict lockdown measures, local cops found 15 people drinking in the bar, lights dimmed in an attempt to keep their activity off the radar.
The owner told the cops it was okay, they were customers who’d ordered take-out food, so he was allowed to serve them while they waited (no, you can’t do that at all, but that was the defence). The cops said no way, all of you pay up and leave. As they left, the cops noticed that not one of them left with take-out food.
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As a result, that establishment is now one of only six premises across the entire state of New York to have its liquor licence suspended for defying lockdown.
Oh, and in an interesting side note, it turns out the cops raided the joint on a tip from a local citizen.
Probably one of those pesky outsiders.
Originally published as COVID-19 in the New York suburbs has its perks and its quirks, as locals rage against lockdown
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