Take this eerie video ride through coronavirus-emptied NYC streets

As the coronavirus pandemic forces states to crack down on gathering places and more and more companies shift to teleworking schedules, America’s urban areas are becoming eerily quiet. Nothing illustrates this more clearly than a drive through an almost-empty New York City. 

Hansen Lukman of YouTube channel ShiftingLanes went for a cruise around the nearly deserted streets, passing several recognizable landmarks which, even early in the morning, would usually be bustling transit hubs and tourist magnets. 

While cars and a handful of pedestrians appear with some frequency around Lukman as he drives through the city, even Madison Square Garden, which sits atop New York Penn Station and is typically buzzing with pedestrians, cabs and normal commuter traffic, is quiet. 

Lukman enters the city via the George Washington Bridge and heads south toward One World Trade. While stopped at a red light on what appears to be the West Side Highway in the Tribeca neighborhood, Lukman and his passenger spot a long queue outside of a Whole Foods, where locals were waiting to get in to purchase groceries. It’s the largest crowd visible at any point in the video. 

Making his way back north from the WTC, he passes through Times Square on Seventh Avenue and heads north to Central Park. His route around the green space starts at Columbus Circle on its southwest corner. He cuts through the park at West 86th and heads back south through the Upper East Side, where he passes the The Metropolitan Museum of Art (aka The Met). 

Lukman then heads back south via Fifth Avenue. Like the rest of the city, the normally bustling high-end shopping corridor is virtually empty. From there, he leaves Manhattan behind via the Lincoln Tunnel, but not without giving us a little taste of the Hyundai Veloster N’s exhaust note.