The city may be only months from seeming like its old self. But the pandemic has changed many lives.

Ofelia Becerra Díaz, pictured with her daughter, Culy, lost a sister to Covid-19.Credit…Sasha Maslov for The New York Times

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By Michael Wilson

The old job, the old office, the old week — for many New Yorkers, the possibility of the return of something resembling their old life appears finally within reach. For them, the year of the pandemic was a blip, a pause, however frustrating, in their lives.

But for so many others, the old life is gone forever, washed away in tragedy, a job erased or a reordering of priorities.

New York may be just months away from seeming like its former self — restaurants and bars buzzing with people, subways full of vaccinated riders. The next few weeks will bring many reasons to feel hopeful. An increase in vaccine supply means appointments should be easier to secure, and the warmer weather will begin to draw people out of their homes.

But look closer and you see the truth. New York couldn’t possibly emerge from this year the same. Not after all this. Every street, block and building has suffered loss in some form.

The make-do adjustments, pivots and reactions of the last year have since calcified, becoming regular parts of the day. This is the new New York, and these are some of the new New York lives:

Andrew S. Gonzalez, 31, was a chef and menu planner for a chain of restaurants in Qatar. Now, he’s back home in the Lower East Side, where he hustles food deliveries for DoorDash and Postmates and is getting to know his 9-year-old son, Nael, whom he had only seen through biannual visits over the years. “I’m starting, like, all new,” he said.

Bienvenida D. Morales, 51, found a new job assembling and handing out meals through the city’s public schools. It’s like discovering a new city, one filled with need. “Families come, they say, ‘Thank you, thank you, it’s all I have to eat today,’” she said.

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