The spaces we filled, now filled with space
It’s a scene playing out all over the world. The empty streets, the silent playgrounds and the lone commuter. Rush hour feels more like hush hour.
From above, life on earth looks different. The patterns of our daily routines are now replaced by the patterns of empty parking lots, rows of school buses sitting idle and the long shadows of solitary figures in the early spring sunshine.
But life, while interrupted, carries on.
Shoppers social distance while waiting in line to get groceries. Mass is held without the masses. And Alice, an elephant at the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, Rhode Island, eats her lunch without the usual audience.
“They’re used to crowds and having people around and now that that’s gone, they sense that’s something different,” said Ron Patalano, the zoo’s deputy director of operations. “You know they can sense it’s not the same.”
School buses sit parked in a lot as schools remain closed due to the coronavirus March 30, 2020, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Jaime Torres, 28, plays basketball on an empty court at Fargnoli Park, March 22, 2020, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
A lone passenger boards the commuter train toward Boston at rush hour March 30, 2020, in Attleboro, Mass. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
A man lies out on a bench in the empty pedestrian mall of Quincy Market, a popular spot for tourists and shoppers now empty due to coronavirus, March 21, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
The late afternoon sun casts a long shadow of a lone pedestrian walking up the steps of City Hall Plaza, March 21, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Toys lie scattered on an empty playground outside a closed school Monday, March 30, 2020, in Attleboro, Mass. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
A construction site sits idle after projects in the city were shut down due to the coronavirus, March 26, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Northeastern University students kick a soccer ball around while social distancing on Roberto Clemente Field as others run around the track, March 26, 2020, in Boston. The students usually have three times as many people join but many went home after the school closed. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Empty tables and chairs sit outside a restaurant in the North End, the city's Italian neighborhood normally bustling with tourists and diners, March 21, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
A pedestrian crosses Lansdowne Street which would normally be busy with Boston Red Sox baseball fans watching the Sox's first game away in Toronto on opening day in at bars around Fenway Park, March 26, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
A lone bicyclist peddles though an empty Dewey Square Plaza outside South Station at rush hour which would normally be bustling with people catching trains home, March 26, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Shoppers wait in line while practicing social distancing to enter a Trader Joe's supermarket, March 26, 2020, in Boston. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
The Rev. Peter Gower holds his daily Mass before empty pews at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church, March 29, 2020, in Johnston, R.I. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Alice, an elephant at Roger Williams Park Zoo, eats hay out of a barrel as the usually busy picnic tables and walkways filled with visitors sit empty while the zoo is closed to the public due to the coronavirus, March 30, 2020, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Text from AP News story AP PHOTOS: The spaces we filled, now filled with space by David Goldman.