The days of early March in New York were uncertain and eerie. Across the ocean, rising cases of the newly named novel coronavirus were being reported in Italy and France, killing hundreds and infecting thousands more, following an earlier deadly outbreak in China. In New York, fear was clearly beginning to mount, but much of the city's routine seemed intact. No one was wearing masks except medical workers. Restaurants and bars were still packed every night. The subways seemed less crowded than they had been a few weeks earlier, and yet millions of people were still making the daily commute to work. Life went on, if somewhat more cautiously than before.

Then on Thursday, March 19, it all changed. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that a stay-at-home order would be imposed across the state, effective at 8 p.m. on Sunday the 22nd. All but essential businesses, which included grocery stores, pharmacies and liquor stores, would have to shut their doors.

At Vogue, a new reality had already begun to take hold. The week before, most people on staff had started working from home. On the morning of March the 16th, that policy became official and the staff, now working remotely, had its first Zoom meeting (the first of hundreds over the next two months). And like everyone else in the city, we rushed to prepare for the lockdown: Stocking up on groceries, rushing to buy bottles of Lysol and hand-sanitizer, getting a last-minute haircut, moving in with family members who might offer a refuge from the densely populated city.

And for many of us, it also represented the last time we were able to take part in the daily rituals of our liveseating at a favorite restaurant, walking to the neighborhood playground or local ice cream store with a child, playing a couple of sets on a battered public tennis court, racing to catch a subway, picking out an outfit for workall small, mundane moments that, only now in retrospect, have taken on the power of a cherished memory. Here, from Vogue writers and editors, are a few glimpses of our lives before lockdown.

This is a picture of me and my son, Guyor more accurately, our shadowsas we walked to school in Brooklyn, in early March. (My wife, Biba, and daughter, Esme are behind us.) Our whole family walked to school every day before Biba and I headed off to work, and while getting out the door was a daily clock-racing, multitasking, forgetting-something-and-running-back-home-to-grab-it hecticness that I certainly dont miss, the steadying ritual of it allalong with the daily high-energy run-ins with so many of the kids friends along the short walknow seems like something out of a kind of utopia.

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The Last Time: Recalling Daily Life in New York Just Before the City Went Into the COVID-19 Lockdown - Vogue