It's quiet here on the Loyola Campus; classrooms are empty, dorms closed, library closed, no students on campus for over a year.
Facing Sherbrooke Street West, chapel on the right |
The Vanier Library |
Main administration building |
Can you take me back where I came from? One pre-Covid day I found myself singing this Beatle's song to myself as I walked along the street. Whatever it meant before Covid, it now has a whole new meaning.
Not as widely reported was the increase in the number of suicides; there was one suicide a few blocks from here, we drove by the scene of this suicide a few minutes after it happened. I saw the body of the deceased lying on the grass surrounded by police officers. There was a second suicide also a few blocks away from where we live. Both of these suicides were at residences for old people. How could it have been otherwise? The old were isolated from other people and confined to their rooms.
Staying at home, businesses closed, the streets were eerily quiet in March 2020; it was hard to believe that there were people living in those apartment buildings and houses. Many people didn't go outside, they were afraid of being infected by Covid-19, or they thought they weren't allowed to leave their homes. I continued with daily walks and saw very few people.
My plan is to post photographs I've taken during the Covid months, in this first series the photographs were taken in March 2020. Below are photos of Cote St-Luc Shopping Centre (a half block from where I live) just days after it was closed due to Covid lockdown. At the time we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into and we're still not sure how this will end.