Ground Zero: How New York became the epicentre of the global coronavirus outbreak
The Independent (UK): Ted Steinberg, Adeline Barry Davee Distinguished Professor of History in the College of Arts and Sciences, spoke as a historian of natural disasters in America and as a Brooklyn native, to agree with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo that the city’s closeness can be a blessing and a curse when disaster strikes: “The city’s vibrant street life, the pounding excitement that people feel as they come up the stairs of Penn Station onto Seventh Avenue—these are the result of packing millions of people into one small spot on the planet,” he said. “Density has positive social impacts and potentially positive ecological ones. But density also exacts a price when coastal storms make evacuation difficult if not impossible, and in cases like the current one in which closeness is looking every day more and more like the kiss of death.”