New York During COVID Photography | Empty NYC

New York during COVID photographed by native NYC photographer Ken Jones. A personal photo essay of the Oculus, Fulton Center, Broadway, and empty downtown streets during a time when the city felt silent, abandoned, and surreal.

New York During COVID: The City That Stopped

New York during COVID was unlike anything I had ever seen.

As a native New Yorker, I have walked this city in every season with a camera in my hand. New York is usually movement, noise, crowds, construction, traffic, tourists, office workers, street vendors, delivery people, trains, sirens, and energy. Even late at night, the city has a pulse.

But during COVID, that pulse felt like it had almost stopped.

One day, I took out my Phase One camera and walked down toward the Oculus at the World Trade Center. I had been there years earlier before the building was finished, shooting for one of the contractors. Back then, I was high up in the rafters where no tourist would ever go, looking down over the main floor while my client was laying piping to help heat the floor during the winter.

That memory stayed with me: the scale of the space, the height, the construction, the workers, the feeling of being inside something still being built.

Then I returned during COVID.

This was a place that should have been filled with tourists, commuters, office workers, shoppers, and people moving through downtown Manhattan. Instead, it was almost empty. The silence was unsettling. The scale of the architecture suddenly felt even larger because there were so few people inside it. The only real movement came from a few workers cleaning surfaces with alcohol, wiping down a public space that once felt impossible to keep still.

The same feeling continued through Fulton Center and out into the streets.

Broadway, normally one of the most recognizable and heavily traveled streets in the world, felt barren. It looked less like New York and more like a scene from a film set after the end of the world. Storefronts were quiet. Sidewalks were empty. The usual chaos was gone. There was no rhythm, no crowd, no collision of people and purpose.

For me, these photographs were never about making a public statement. At the time, I did not even know if I wanted to post them. They were more of a personal record, proof that this strange, impossible moment had actually happened.

I photographed New York during COVID as a reminder of the insanity of that time. Not because the city looked beautiful in the usual way, but because it looked unfamiliar. It was the same city I had known my whole life, but emptied of the thing that defines it most: people.

The Oculus, Fulton Center, Broadway, and the surrounding downtown streets became symbols of something much larger. They showed a city suspended in fear, uncertainty, and stillness. Places built for movement were suddenly frozen. Spaces designed for crowds became almost private. The absence of people became the subject.

These images are part of my personal COVID NYC photo essay, a native New Yorker’s record of a moment when the city felt silent, surreal, and almost unrecognizable.

New York City – Oculus (COVID Series)

Oculus Hallway (Underground Passage)

An underground passageway connecting the Oculus and Westfield Center in New York City, photographed during a moment of complete stillness. The long, whalebone-like corridor stretches toward the distance, usually filled with commuters moving between the PATH train and surrounding transit systems. In its emptiness, the architecture becomes the subject—revealing symmetry, repetition, and scale without interruption.

Oculus Corridor (Opposite Perspective)

The same Oculus passage photographed from the opposite end, transforming the space through a shift in perspective. What is physically the same location appears entirely different in tone and composition, emphasizing how light and viewpoint reshape architectural experience. The absence of people allows the structure to feel both monumental and isolated.

Oculus Interior (9/11 Light Moment)

Inside the main Oculus, where natural light enters through the structure at a specific time of day, aligning with the moment of the September 11 attacks. The image captures a quiet, reflective atmosphere within the space, where architecture and light intersect with memory. The stillness of the environment reinforces the significance of the location.

Fulton Center Ceiling (Glass and Steel Structure)

The interior ceiling of the Fulton Center transit hub in New York City, photographed from below. The glass and steel structure creates a geometric pattern that diffuses light throughout the space. Though captured in color, the image reads almost as black and white, emphasizing form, contrast, and architectural design over color.

New York During COVID is a personal documentary photography series by Ken Jones, a native New York City photographer based in downtown Manhattan. Photographed with a Phase One camera, the series documents the Oculus, Fulton Center, Broadway, and the surrounding streets during the COVID pandemic, when normally crowded public spaces became quiet, empty, and surreal.

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